Star Fox: Innocence Lost
by Demo ODST
Summary: With earth in turmoil, millions have left the world to settle on Corneria. A sinister force seeks its former power. To obtain it, they have started taking people at random. The Cornerian government hires Star Fox to protect their next potential victim, who in turn place the individuals care into their newest members hands.
1. Chapter 1

**Welcome back, readers new and old. i'm just letting yall know, i updated a good portion of this story, fixing consistency errors and other edits, but more will eventually follow, and i hope you enjoy!**

* * *

 _January Earth, 2023_

My eye's wandered across the horizon, seeing nothing but destruction as far as I could see. The entire planet was in turmoil, conflicts having erupted across the globe, virtually tearing what humanity knew as society apart. In the distance, amongst what used to be a prosperous city, I could see an armored column of M1A3 Abrams tanks, the large angular tanks having been modified with cutting edge plasma weaponry and micro fusion plants, technology decades ahead of everything humanity had known even a decade ago. But, those modified tanks were nothing compared to the three story tall mechs walking with them. They looked much like people, with angular lines and armor. They also carried various weapons, almost like their infantry counterparts. Most carried a massive assault rifle, firing large twenty-five millimeter rounds. There were also shotgun like weapons, pistols, chain guns, and all sorts of different weapons to suit any pilot's needs. They also had a set of thrusters built into the craft, in the feet and on the back to name two of the main places, that allowed for sudden powerful movements and limited flight abilities. The craft were extremely mobile, and quickly had taken the spot of the deadliest craft on the battle field. Thankfully, this convoy only had two escorting it. Although, those two looked way beyond the boxy machines that I usually saw and fought. They were entirely smooth and angular lines, the head being almost like a helmet with a set of red glowing eyes under the rim of the visor. It almost looked like it was wearing a flight mask with the way the face stuck out. I quivered slightly, now completely unsure about the fight that lay before me, unable to shake the fact that I didn't recognize the model of mechs that were before us. I felt a hand on my shoulder and glanced over to see my dark haired brother beside me, grinning as he usually did, his sharp features seeming to fit the expression perfectly.

"Nervous?" I quickly shook my head, trying to swallow, even though there was no liquid in my mouth.

"Not at all Matt. Just want to get this over with." He smirked, cycling the bolt on his M4A1. His brown eyes locking with mine as he spoke.

"Bro, you look scared shitless. It's alright to be scared. You're only fourteen." I shrugged, looking back through the rubble we were using as a fighting position. Although I was scared at the moment, fear and I had already come to an agreement of sorts, it no longer being a problem for me. At least, after the shooting started that is. And although I thought of him as my brother, and the feeling was almost undeniably mutual, we really weren't. Both of us had lost our family's at the start of this war, and had been fighting together almost since the I had started fighting, almost five years prior.

"I aint scared. Just want this shit to be done. I'm tired of fighting." I heard him grunt behind me, my eyes glancing back to see him shoulder a simple AT7, a model very similar to the AT4's that had been standard issue. He had another of his indomitable smirks on his face, it honestly being unsettling how excited he seemed in a fight. But it was just a façade to hide his own fears. We were both wearing the same digital patterned camouflage, faded and torn from years of wear. Although mine barely fit, being too baggy for me. We also were both wearing light, black, tactical vests with old worn out pouches carrying ammo for our weapons and various other equipment, a pouch on our left shoulders holding a radio, his only visible to me as a black antenna sticking out over his shoulder, the rest hidden on his back.

"So Chris, you want to start this party?" I gulped and nodded, cycling the bolt on my M468, just before resting the large tube connected under the barrel on the rubble, that being an underslung M203 grenade launcher. I took a deep breath as I looked through the short range ACOG scope, the small red triangle seeming to glow with an inner light. I lined it up on one of the infantry of the column, his white body armor and kit looking straight from a science fiction movie. At the end of my breath out, I gently squeezed the trigger, the rifle discharging with an incredible bang, breaking the relative peace of the area. I saw the soldier drop, his comrades panicking as rifle shots erupted from all around us, as well as the sounds of dozens of missiles hitting the air, the concussive waves off the weapons launching sending my head spinning. Several of the convoy's vehicles detonated, blasted apart by their reactors being ruptured. But, several more had the missiles detonate harmlessly on the hull, the shaped charges not hitting anything vital with in the tanks. Without thinking, I shifted my rifle again, firing another shot at the infantry, knowing I missed as the soldier kept running, another shot hitting him and tearing through his armor. red bolts of plasma began ripping away from the soldiers in the convoy, the mechs turning to engage. I felt more than heard my brother's rocket launcher fire, watching the shot race out, headed straight for one of the mech's, only to detonate harmlessly several feet from hitting it, a wispy blue energy marking a powerful energy shield guarding the mech. I heard him swear, his hand grabbing the handle on my vest as he yanked me away from the small sheltered nook in the rubble. "Come on, we gotta go! Those mechs will tear us a new one if we hang around!" I needed no second invitation, seeing hundreds of our fellow resistance fighters scrambling to run, red bolts ripping into them, as well as explosions following the blue bolts of the tank rounds. Screams were amazingly out powering the zipping sounds of plasma bolts, until the booms started. Rapid flurries of booms, almost like the bursts of an assault rifle or machine gun, only much louder, followed by yellow tracer rounds lancing into clusters of soldiers, the massive rounds fired by the mechs literally tearing the gruella fighters apart. Dirt and gore was blasted skyward with each and every burst, rapidly diminishing the number of fighters that were still retreating. Suddenly, as I scrambled across an open street, the massive booms became unbearably loud, my body being tossed about like a rag. I groaned as the booming came to a stop, my entire body aching as a ring filled my ears. Broken rock and asphalt caused sharp spurts of pain as the debris rained down on me. Dust lazily drifted around me as I rolled over onto my back, my rifle still clutched tightly in my hand. I slowly sat up, seeing the corpse that used to be my brother, half his hip region missing along with the leg, one round having nearly torn his body in half. Tears stung my eyes as I sat there frozen in place, unable to move or think as the sight was burned into my memory. Sound slowly returned to my ears as the dust settled, the sound of a fighter jet's engines screaming over head, followed by a loud sharp buzzing sound, and several powerful explosions rocking the area. But even that didn't break the trance I found myself in. I didn't fight as a hand grabbed me and yanked me to my feet, dragging me away from the violent battle ground.

* * *

 _August 2025, Corneria Orbit, Great Fox._

Fox McCloud groaned as he sat up, an alarm buzzing in his ear. He slapped the alarm clock beside his bed, groaning yet again as he realized that it wasn't his alarm clock ringing. He rolled off his bed his tail catching on the blanket and forcing him to stop for a second to pull the blanket off his bushy appendage. He groggily moved over to the intercom by the door, silencing the alarm in his room and activating the intercom at the same time.

"Hey, what's the alarm for ROB? I'm trying to sleep here!" the robot's mechanical voice spoke, filling his room.

"Incoming transmission from General Pepper." Fox sighed, glancing down at his bare body, his fluffy almost burnt orange and cream colored fur waving slightly as the air conditioning drifted by.

"Alright, fine, I'll take it on the bridge in a few. Out." He groaned yet again as he slipped over to his office chair, quickly slipping into the flight suit he had left there, slipping his white jacket and plated boots over it before clipping his blaster belt on. His feet quickly carried him out of the room and into the main hall, taking an immediate left turn and heading for the bridge. It wasn't a far walk, the doors sliding open as he approached. The team's newest member, and only non-pilot, was the only other one on the bridge, silently waiting for him. He was a human hailing from the turbulent world of earth, having grown up fighting. He may only be seventeen, but he was likely the most experienced ground fighter on the ship, most of Fox's near decade as a mercenary seeing less action during it than he saw in a single year on earth. He was an expert in ground combat tactics and equipment, leading them several times already too easy wins in ground operations. Although, that may have had something to do with the massive battle mech he brought from earth, heavily modified by Slippy to hybridize human and Cornerian tech. he had proven to be able to annihilate entire companies of enemy troops on his own with the mech, something unique to humanity. Even though most of their technology was centuries behind Cornerians, having not even developed their own Warp drives, but had created incredible leaps in weapons technology after a pair of Cornerian Destroyers wrecked on the planet. The loss of those destroyers had introduced them to the galactic community a few years after, once the Cornerian Defense Force discovered their fates. The planet was already in the process of tearing itself apart at that point. A select set of nations had hogged the wrecks of the destroyers, using their enhanced military tech to attempt to create a worldwide dominate force. A massive resistance started, creating a planet wide civil war. Out gunned by the technologically superior force, that resistance was slowly crumbling, becoming more and more desperate in their fight. That resistance was how their human had gained so much experience at such a young age.

The human nodded to Fox, Fox returning the small gesture of respect, curious as to why the kid was already fully dressed in his usual garb, grey army fatigues with black armored vest, covered in pouches. He had a beat up human assault rifle on his back, as well as a human handgun, having a strange hatred for plasma weapons. The only thing he would ever use them with being his mech. Fox's fingers flew over the small keyboard on his command chair, even before he had managed to sit down. The quick commands opened up the main holo screen, covering up the star field out the main viewport with an image of General pepper, a brown, saggy skinned canine wearing his usual red formal uniform.

"Sorry to wake you Fox. I have need for the Star Fox team." Fox waved it off, still groggy from being awoken.

"It's alright. What's going on General." His image shrank to half the screen, several images of what seemed like several different people, ranging from young to mid aged, and of all races, including human, appearing on the screen. Large numbers of humans had ended up in the Lylat system, fleeing from the carnage on their home world.

"We have been noticing several odd disappearances lately. After some investigating, it is believed that Andross's forces are behind them, but we are unsure as to why." Fox thoughtfully stroked his chin, responding as soon as Pepper was done speaking.

"Alright, so you want us to hunt them down or something?" General Pepper shook his head, the images changing to that of a human girl, clearly still in school. She had very dark brown hair, falling down to the bottom of her shoulder blades. In one of the pictures, she was smiling, a canine beside her laughing about something. She was also brushing her hair away from her very deep blue eyes, and even Fox had to admit that she was a very pretty girl.

"No. the CIA thinks that this girl is one of their next targets. It's unknown why, but they intercepted these images last night. I want you to protect her. I'll be paying by the day, four thousand Liat a day to be precise, and a bonus of twenty thousand should you actually prevent something." Fox snorted at that, realizing just how much such an easy job was going to make them.

"Alright, you got a deal. Whats the target's name?" his console dinged as files began to download to it.

"Samantha Warren. She's sixteen, second year into her school. I'm open on how you decide to protect her, so long as it works. She moved to Corneria six years ago, shortly after we discovered humanity. She speaks Cornerian fluently, as well as English. Decent grades in her classes, as far as we can tell, a perfectly polite and normal student." Fox nodded, a plan already forming in his mind.

"Alright, I'll stay in touch General." The comm line cut, Fox turning his chair toward the human standing quietly in the corner. He had dark almost black hair, and near silver grey eyes, fitting well with his short hair and sharp features. For being so young, he was already scarred from warfare, the only currently visible scar being across his cheek, a graze from a kinetic round. "Chris, go get Peppy, then prep yourself some gear and clothing."

"Yes sir, should I prep the MICS?" Fox raised an eyebrow at him, shrugging at his response.

"Do you really think you need a battle mech in a civilian city?" the human shrugged, leaving the bridge almost immediately after. Fox let out a small sigh before quickly flicked through the data as he waited for Peppy to arrive, unable to not smirk as his earlier idea began to form into a coherent plan.

* * *

I dropped the duffel bag of gear into the back of the grey SUV Fox owned, looking up at the blue sky above me. It was crisscrossed with spacecraft and air craft, all using the spaceport the vehicle was parked out front of. A blue bird like individual dropped another duffel bag beside the stack I had created, groaning with effort. His dark blue feathers were all puffed out in total annoyance as he did so, his green eyes damn near staring daggers from his red eye sockets.

"Shesh kid, how much did you pack?" I boredly stared right back as I closed the tailgate, speaking very plainly.

"Just the usual necessities, a few rifles, ammo for them, ammo for the 203, my handgun, a stun pistol, couple of AT7's, C4, M67's, flashbangs, anti-personnel and anti-tank mines, traps, detonators…." He cut me off, one eyebrow raised.

"You realize you are guarding a highschool girl, not going to war, right?" I nodded gesturing at the bags again.

"Yes. It's best to be prepared for any scenario. So, I have anti tank and mech capabilities, as well as anti-infantry, counter-sniper…." Falco cut me off again, one palm pressed up against his forehead, just above his beak.

"Chris, you need to chillax man. You aint gonna need to fight tanks or mechs, or aircraft, or anything! Maybe a sniper, maybe some shady guys with blasters, not a friggin army!" I looked around, suddenly feeling even more unsure as to my role in the mission.

"But, it's good to be prepa…" he cut me off yet again, placing a hand on the SUV to lean on it, his arm fully extended.

"And what's up with that get up? You need to look like a teenager, not a paramilitary bad-ass!" I looked down at my gear, a mid-weight armored vest designed against both plasma and ballistic weapons, which had several pouches on it, all empty at the moment. Underneath was my usual grey uniform, a form of fiber-armored clothing to provide a small amount of protection from debris and shrapnel. This was all topped off with my black combat boots, and dropdown holster for my pistol tightly secured to my side. "Fox, gimme a hand here!" I glanced up at the orange and white fox, his emerald eyes bouncing between us. he had a small assault pack on his shoulder with some cloths, nothing more. He rolled his eyes at me, looking up and down my clothing.

"Seriously kid, you need to drop the paramilitary act, loosen up a bit, actually act your age for a bit." I groaned, giving Fox a pitiful look.

"Can I at least keep my forty-five?" Fox's shoulders slumped as he gestured at the interior of the car.

"Yeah, I guess, come on, lets get going, Peppy is at the school, getting you registered. You need to get into that apartment." I dropped into the passenger seat, Fox taking the driver's seat, Falco forced to one of the back seats. With in minutes, the quiet trio were racing across a highway, Fox finally breaking the silence. "When we get there, you are changing clothes, got it?" I grimaced, speaking in a very quiet voice, almost ashamed of myself.

"I don't own anything other than tactical wear. I haven't needed it before." Fox sighed as well, easily weaving through the slower traffic.

"Alright, I guess I gotta take you shopping. Joy. Falco, you're in charge of getting the gear upstairs." Falco groaned as he responded.

"Fuuuuck. Why me? They don't got a janitor service or something that we can make them do it?"

"Falco….." he groaned again at Fox's voice when Fox's wrist began ringing. He answered the call and instantly groaned, his ears dropping back.

"Hi Mom." His transmitter was linked to an earpiece in his ear, letting him be hands free while talking. By the way he cringed, there was clearly an excited response on the other end, but none of us could hear it. "Yes, I'm on Corneria…. No I have not said hi to Fara, no…. mom, no, I don't want to say hi to her….. we did break up mom… yeah….. yeah, I'll swing by, tell dad I said hi….. yes, I got to go….. yes… mom, I'm on a job, I gotta go….." Falco chuckled behind us as the conversation dragged on and on until Fox finally just hit the end call button. "Shesh, I love her to death but she just doesn't shut up sometimes." Falco burst out laughing as I looked away, unable to not feel sad. _Wish I had a mother still…._ I shoved the thoughts and memories that thought brought up away, trying to suppress them once more. Fox guided the car off the highway, easily navigating the streets until we reached a small multistoried apartment building. We all got out heading up stairs with as many bags as possible to a room Peppy had already rented out for us. He had picked this particular apartment because it overlooked the apartment the girl we had been tasked to protect lived in. I dropped the two duffels I had been carrying, quickly dropping the vest on them. "Drop your pistol too. Yes, it's legal to carry weapons on Corneria, but you aren't of age yet." I groaned and dropped the tactical belt as well, Fox beckoning me to follow. We marched back downstairs, quickly pulling all of the bags from the back and dropping them on the sidewalk before jumping back into the vehicle.

"Alright, let's go get you looking the part." Fox said, backing away from the building and pulling back into the hectic city traffic, myself sighing as he did so. "So, you realize this will be a lot easier on us if you get close to her, right?" I glanced at him, going back to staring out the window, trying to remember the streets and areas we passed.

"I hope you are not meaning friends sir." He chuckled, seeming to be barely paying attention to his driving.

"Of course I mean friends dip shit. You'd look weird just following her around all the time if you weren't friends."

"I'm supposed to be guarding her. it's not that odd." Fox groaned, narrowly missing a car as it pulled out from a space.

"She isn't supposed to know we are here. We don't want to cause a panic. People are finally calming down after the whole Andross business a decade ago. No one thinks he's a threat anymore. So if a famous mercenary outfit was seen guarding someone for unknown reasons, people would start panicking and trying to figure out why. So, you cant let her know you are guarding her. get me?" I nodded, him finally bringing the car to a stop almost at the same time.

* * *

Samantha groaned as her alarm rang, her fist smacking the device until it finally shut up. She groggily slipped out of her bed, heading straight for the one bathroom in the small apartment she shared with her older brother and mother, not that her brother was really there anymore. Their father had been killed as they fled earth, shot dead feet from them by a resistance fighter. She sighed, fighting those memories back to the back of her mind as she showered for the day. It didn't take her long to slip into a set of skin tight black yoga pants and an hourglass shaped t-shirt she got from a friend, a Cornerian music logo faded on the front of it. she grabbed her back pack, finding herself not very hungry, and deciding to just head out. It didn't take her long to leave the apartment and reach the bus stop, staying a short way away from the other students that were gathering there. Most of them didn't even notice or care, having known that she was a bit of a loner. A lot of humans stuck to themselves or in little groups. Most kept away from the Cornerians entirely. Suddenly, one of the Cornerians, a black and white border collie, came practically bouncing her way too her. the female canine was a little shorter than Samantha, with incredibly deep brown eyes and wearing a yellow dress that fit her bouncy personality better than words could describe. She was practically screaming at the top of her longs as she approached, Samantha smiling and blushing at the exuberant canine, despite this being a regular occurrence with her.

"Sammy! How's it going girly!?" the girl rammed Samantha into a hug, which she full heartedly returned, despite the fact that it felt as though the canine was trying to crush the life out of her.

"Callie, it's been what, two days? Why so excited to see me?" the collie let her go and shrugged, still grinning, her not surprisingly wagging like it would never wag again.

"I'm always excited to see you! Did you hear about the new student we are getting!?" Samantha sighed, raising an eyebrow at her.

"How would I have, I just got here Callie." She grimaced for a second, her ears dropping what little they could.

"Oh, yeah, well he's over there, he looks kinda creepy to me though…." Samantha followed the line of her thumb over her shoulder to the guy in question, who was leaning up against a street light well away from everyone else. He seemed to be watching everything around him at once, and Samantha couldn't shake the feeling that his eyes kept flicking to her for some reason. He had a back pack on, and was wearing grey cargo pants and a blue short sleeve button up shirt, a white t-shirt poking out from beneath it. all of his clothing was baggy on him, hiding his frame very well. He had a scar on his cheek, just beneath his right eye that made her think it was a bullet graze, which honestly would not surprise her. very little of the human population was untouched by war at this point, given the global conflict that was consuming earth.

"Not that creepy. Besides, who cares? We get new people from earth all the time. Come on." She gestured for the Cornerian to follow her as she headed for the bus that was now arriving. Cornerian buses were nothing compared to what she was used to, and were very sleek affairs, with pointed fronts and very comfortable seats within them. She was silent for most of the ride, ignoring her peers, as was also a usual for her, simply watching the familiar streets pass by, a small smile on her face. The bus eventually passed a gate and wall that frankly looked like it belonged at a military base, not a school, but that was due to the recent past. A terrorist organization used to target schools a lot, the Cornerian government posting guards at their schools and locking them down like fortresses, something that was now obsolete and unused. The school campus itself though was fairly familiar even though the school worked a little differently than she was used too. The students didn't move from classroom to classroom, the teachers did. So the classrooms were much nicer than she was used to back home, even at a public school like this one. As soon as the bus stopped, she slipped out of her seat following her friend out of the bus and toward the school.

"So, have a good weekend Sammy?" she glanced at the collie and nodded, returning the canine's smile.

"Yeah, my mom actually got time off, so we went to the mall and saw a movie together. It was great to actually spend time with her again!" Callie smiled back to her, clearly happy that her friend had fun. "So how'd that date go Callie?" she seemed to shrivel up where she stood, her tail tucking itself between her legs, and not even looking at Samantha.

"I spilled soup all over my dress! I'm fairly sure he doesn't want to see me ever again!" Sammy chuckled, patting her shoulder. Callie was surprisingly cute when she was down.

"Well, what about the rest of the night?" she shrugged, still looking ashamed.

"It went fine, I think." Sammy smiled to her yet again as they stepped into the building, just feet from their classroom.

"Then I'm sure it will be fine Callie. I'm sure he wants to meet up again!" Callie sheepishly returned the smile as she spoke, a subtle wag accompanying it as their feet carried them into their classroom. It had rows of desks, just like any classroom, but each desk had a holo-viewer built into it that could be used as a video screen or display three dimensional models. Although, most classwork was still on paper, the computers helped with learning the material. They only had a few minutes before class started, so they both moved to their desks, close to the long windows that dominated the left side of the room. Straight ahead of them was a massive electronic board that could display video, and be written on with a stylus, or operated via touch. Just in front of the screen was the teacher's desk, about as normal as all teacher's desks were. The second she reached her usual seat, she dropped her bag under it and plopped into the seat, the collie dropping behind her. Two of her other friends were already sitting in their seats beside herself and Callie, one being a turquoise eagle, who had a very long and lanky frame. She was sitting directly beside Callie, and her name was Ava. Beside Samantha was a fellow human girl, Maria, who hailed from mexico originally, but had learned English when she was very little. She had short, straight black hair and deep brown eyes, matching very well with her dark skin and slightly plump features. She quietly waved hello as her class mates filed into their seats, the teacher about to silence the class.

"Alright, hello class, we got ourselves another new student today." Their main teacher was an aging bulldog with white fur, and despite his somewhat aggressive appearance, was quite friendly. "If you would, come up here, introduce yourself to the class." Sammy watched as he stood from the very last seat in her row, all the way in the corner of the room, making his way through the class room, and to the front. As he passed her, she noticed that he had small scars on his arms as well, curious as to what they were from. He seemed very uncomfortable at the front of the class room, looking like he would want nothing more than to disappear right there. "Well?" he sighed as the teacher spoke again, speaking in a low but fairly powerful voice.

"My name is Christopher McGlocklin." And his voice dropped off after that, him clearly thinking that was enough.

"And anything you think we should know about you?" he turned bright red, getting a chuckle out of most of the class. Samantha didn't though, totally understanding not wanting to share anything about oneself.

"Um….. I'm from earth, um….." his voice dropped off again as the class roared with laughter, Samantha unable to help but feel sorry for him, seeing that just how uncomfortable he was up there, shifting back and forth between his feet.

"Well, does anyone have a question for our new classmate?" someone instantly shouted out a question from the back, Samantha being unsure as to who had asked it.

"How'd your face get all messed up?" she wanted to glare at whoever it was, but she was surprised when he responded quite calmly.

"I got shot by somebody who didn't survive my reprisal." The amount of venom in the statement got the entire class silent, to which his head turned toward the teacher. "We done now?" the teacher nodded, clearly slightly shocked himself. He moved to the back of the class again, Samantha giving him one last glance before her attention returned to the front of the classroom, forgetting all about him within minutes.


	2. Chapter 2

Samantha yawned and stretched finally glad that it was lunch time, having been almost lectured to death by the teachers.

"Ugh, I hate math." Samantha smirked at Ava beside her, the avian looking utterly defeated as she tapped her pen on the note book she used for math class, which was covered in idle doodles, almost filling the pages. Samantha smirked, knowing she spent most of her time doodling random patterns and images, excelling in nothing but art class.

"Well, maybe if you payed attention every once and a while, you wouldn't mind it so much!" Maria was already turning around as Samantha spoke, sliding her neat note book onto Ava's desk, a smile on her face.

"Here, my notes are really good if you need some help." Ava smiled, accepting the notes as she struggled with the problems. Samantha, on the other hand, let her attention go to her desk, manipulating the screen as she searched for more info for her history project, trying to finish it before the end of lunch when they would have history.

"Wish you could help me with this history project. I don't know anything about lylatian history, especially not the in depth study he is asking for!" their particular project required each of them to draw a topic at random and do an in depth report on it. The topic she had drawn was the venom insurrection from ten years ago. Maria gave her a sad look, smiling gently at her for a second.

"I'm sorry Samantha, I'm not much help there either. Hey Callie, what did you bring for lunch?" the group usually cycled through each other, only one member bringing the group lunch each day. Sometimes, they would go somewhere off grounds to eat, but due to the workload today, they already had known they weren't leaving the classroom. The Canine didn't respond for a few seconds, causing Sammy to glance behind her, curious as well. She seemed to be staring at something behind them, the slump in her shoulders instantly telling Samantha that she was sad about something.

"look at him, he's all alone over there. And he looks like he's having a lot of trouble too!" Samantha leaned out a bit to see who she was looking at, seeing the new kid, a couple of notebooks out on his desk, frantically flicking between them, his homework sheets, and five different holograms of things they had gone over that day, looking utterly bewildered.

"Yeah, he does. We should invite him over." Maria's voice was filled with pity, a concerned expression on her face. Samantha shrugged, not really caring as her attention focused back on her work, running searches to find information. She heard Callie and Maria stand, not paying attention until Callie's voice drifted over to her.

"No silly! Just pull your card out, and it will save what you are doing!" she glanced back seeing the guys shoulders slump, just before pulling his card out and gathering his things up. His back pack slipped off his arm, clunking to the floor with a very loud and metallic clunk, to which he instantly went red about.

"Oh, here, I got ya." Maria grabbed the bag before he could, groaning slightly as she picked it up. "Shesh, what do you have in here, bricks?" he looked extremely embarrassed again, dropping one of his note books as he tried to get the bag back from her.

"Uh, no! nothing! Just uh, school stuff!" he managed to get the bag from her, Callie scooping up the note book, which he seemed to not care about at all. She was looking at it as he moved to the seat right in front of Samantha, glancing at her for longer than Samantha thought necessary.

"Hey, this is wrong. well, all of it is wrong. did you even pay attention to the lesson today?" Callie was speaking staring at his notes, his face falling.

"Oh….. I thought I was doing it right….." the canine laughed and beckoned him over to her, quickly showing him what he was doing wrong.

"See, make a little more sense now? shouldn't you already know to do that, it's just review?" he shriveled up a little bit again, turning red.

"No, my schooling has been a bit…. Erratic until now. I know a lot about ballistics, and metallurgy, structures, astrodynamics, thermal and chemical explosive combustion, first aid, and so on, just never seen this before, especially not this photosynthe-what ever." Even Ava was fighting to hold in a chuckle at his words, instantly speaking.

"Photosynthesis? Dude, I learned about that in elementary school!" he shrugged, more than a little depressed.

"Oh, come here, I'll help you out a bit, get your notes straight so you can catch up at home!" Callie pulled her ID out of her desk, sliding into the desk next to his and plugging it in. "Oh, I brought some sandwiches, they're in my bag." She seemed to non-chalantly toss that statement back to them, quickly diving into explaining all of their course work from today, the bits Samantha catching telling her that Callie kept having to go farther and farther back in their teaching, trying to find something he was familiar with. Samantha felt her stomach growl, quickly pulling Callie's bag over and distributing some of the sandwiches to the group, offering the new kid one, but he refused it, seeming to not really be paying much attention to Callie as she tried to walk him through things, his eyes either wandering the room of snapping over to Sammy every few seconds, making her start feeling uneasy. Suddenly, he deliberately turned in his chair, speaking a little louder than he necessarily should have.

"that's the Venom insurrection right? You know that it didn't start with a pre-emptive strike right?" Samantha, pulled the article she had gotten that from, showing him.

"That's what this says." He quickly shook his head, manipulating her holo-viewer for a second.

"Here you go. It really started with a recon flight by a group of private military contractors, hired by the CDF to investigate reports of military activity above venom. One of the pilots betrayed the team, and they killed him, getting a whole lot of comms data and recon data on the insurrection's infrastructure and defenses, returning to Corneria and using their flagship to lead a Cornerian battle group to destroy them." An image of a red fox with wings appeared in a holo above her desk, looking like an ad for a PMC group she had never heard of before.

"Hey, I've heard of them! That's Star Fox! They are some bigshot fighter pilots! They fly ships that are decades ahead of the current curve! And their flagship is supposed to be one of the most powerful warships designed! They're pretty famous cause they are the only mercenary company to have ever received a parliamentary commendation." Ava seemed a little more excited than she should have, her voice suddenly becoming dreamy, her eye's fluttering. "One of their pilots is _so_ hot, if I ever met him, I think my heart would stop!" Samantha smirked, having never even seen her friend acting like this. Suddenly, there was a crashing sound, drawing the whole groups attention to where a beaker for science class had shattered across the floor, seeming to have slid off the counter all on it's own, no one even within ten feet of it. As the teacher moved closer to the shattered glass, telling the students that were meters from it not to worry the whole time, one of the still pieces flipped completely on it's own.

"Well that was odd…. Wait a sec, you don't know anything about Trigonometry, and yet you know that particular part of Cornerian history!" Callie's voice changed to one of shock as her focus returned to the boy beside her, who seemed to shrivel up again.

"Well, yeah, I thought that was common knowledge?" Callie rolled her eyes, Maria speaking up almost instantly, still munching on one of the sandwiches as she spoke.

"So Christopher right? Where you from?" He shrugged, still fiddling with the holo-desk.

"Colorado." Maria looked down for a second as Samantha tapped through the site Christopher had led her too, quickly finding all the information she needed.

"oh… I heard the fighting was pretty bad there. How was your last school?" he shrugged, clearly trying to focus elsewhere.

"It was fine."

"So where was you're last school?" he clearly hesitated at Samantha's sudden question, glancing at her again.

"Uh…. Katina?" he sounded extremely unsure of himself, Callie speaking up, clearly having given up on trying to fix his notes.

"Oh, got any friends there?! Oh, do you got a girl there?!" he looked bewildered again, shriveling up where he sat, earning him a giggle from Samantha.

"Uh, what?" Callie joined Samantha in giggling again.

"You know, a girlfriend, silly!" he suddenly clearly found the view out the window very interesting, not looking at any of them.

"Uhmm…." He remained fairly silent as he seemed to debate what to say, callie speaking before he could.

"ouuuu, so you do have a girl! Is she human?!" he instantly responded, sounding panicked.

"No! I don't! really!" he suddenly shriveled up in his chair, and Samantha couldn't help but admit to herself that he was really cute when nervous as he was now.

"Oh, so you had a girl you liked then!?" he violently shook his head and her jaw dropped slightly. "Seriously, not even a gal you liked? Are you gay or something?" he again shook his head, even more violently this time.

"No no no no no, not gay! Just no one, who…. how do I say this, fit my fancy? I think?" she smiled and shrugged, clearly content with that answer, to which he breathed a sigh of relief. "So uh, who are all you guys?" he was very quiet as he said that, fidgeting with his hands. Samantha didn't even look up from her paper as she held her hand out to him.

"Samantha. Pleasure." He gently shook her hand, Samantha not really paying attention as the others all introduced themselves. To which he simply went back to his work, not really even paying much attention to them from there on. He suddenly stood and stretched, speaking softly to her alone.

"I'll be right back." With that, he left the room, causing Samantha to shrug, not really caring. After a few minutes, he returned looking very annoyed about something, sitting back down in his seat.

* * *

My eye's wandered the unfamiliar streets as my feet carried me along, almost not really even paying attention to where I was going. My focus was almost entirely on my environment, seeing hundreds of fighting positions that could be used to set up an ambush, the farther we walked, the more nervous I was that there was going to be some sort of ambush. The girl I was supposed to be protecting was a few steps ahead of me, her avian friend walking with her. Normally, Callie, another one of Samantha's friends, would be with them as well, walking the two miles from the school to their apartments. But she had not even been in school that day, being out sick. Which was precisely why the avian was headed this way, so that she could visit their mutual friend. Normally, Samantha would walk home, enjoying the exercise, while also enjoying the extra sleep that came from riding the bus in the mornings. Given the apartment I was living out of was very close, actually the same complex as Callie's, they had offered for me to join them. My mind idly drifted to the conversation I had the day prior with Falco, after he mistakenly knocked a beaker off the counter while he was using one of Star Fox's cloaking units, along with several other blunders of his from throughout the day, including bumping into people, tripping me, among other things. I had yelled at him for all of it, for the reason that his carelessness and joking attitude could easily blow his cover, losing all tactical edge he had should something happen.

"Hey, why so quiet back there?" I startled at the sweet sounding voice that belonged to Samantha, almost sounding too innocent for what her file on her history said. She laughed slightly as she was looking back at me, seeing me startle.

"Uh, just walking back to the apartment. Nothing else." She rolled her eyes at me, smiling gently in a way that made me beyond uncomfortable.

"Really? You know, this is the second time you have walked home with us, and I feel like you've barely even said more than ten words. Have problems getting to know people?" I grunted, still trying to focus on what was around us.

"Yeah, something like that. Frankly, just got nothing worth talking about ma….." I cut myself off, realizing that I was about to call her ma-am.

"Oh, comeon, there has got to be something you enjoy?" I sighed before I responded, noticing a dark figure in one of alley's we passed, who frankly looked like he was waiting for something.

"Well, I enjoy ballistics and firearms, as well as the not so subtle science of heat shock induced explosions created through friction and speed." She raised an eyebrow at me and I decided to throw something out that almost no one really knew about me, in an effort to seem a little more like a teenager. "I also really love music."

"So, uh, heat induced shock explosions?" Ava laughed, already speaking.

"Yeah, it's where somethings temperature suddenly changes, causing an explosion. It's what makes plasma so effective on people, because we're mostly water, it instantly evaporates, and explosively so." Now Samantha was raising her eyebrow at her friend.

"You actually understood him?" she nodded, causing Samantha to roll her eyes at her. "Joy, I'm stuck around two war nuts. This is going to be a fun walk." My focus shifted back to the area around me, not even paying any attention to the playful argument the two women had broken into. Suddenly, I heard one of them yelp, narrowly avoiding running into them as they suddenly stopped. I glanced forward at them as the Avian grabbed her rear.

"Why the heck did you smack my ass!?" she was speaking directly to me, all of her feathers violently puffed out, and absolutely bewildering me.

"I… what are you talking about?" Ava was glaring at me in a way that seemed like she was trying to melt steel with her eyes, but Samantha glanced around, almost looking confused.

"You heard me! Why the hell did you smack my ass, perv!" I was totally bewildered until I heard a snigger in my ear, feeling someone's breath on my neck.

"I really have no idea what you are talking about!" I forcefully stepped back, feeling my shoulder hit something solid, hoping the two girls didn't notice that part of the movement.

"Oh, don't try to play dumb!" I shrugged my shoulders, still acting bewildered and hoping they bought it.

"Really, i…" she shook her head, turning on the spot as she cut me off.

"just shut up, I know you did it. Come on Sammy." She grabbed Samantha's hand and began walking again, dragging her away, to which she still had a bewildered expression on her face.

"Wait up!" I started to follow when she flipped her middle finger up, aiming the gesture back at me. I groaned and slowed, letting them get a fair way ahead of me before I trudged along after them.

* * *

Falco slipped through the doorway into the apartment, making sure the door was shut before he deactivated his stealth field. A faint pop announced the field turning off, Falco's body returning into view. He breathed a sigh of relief, finally glad that he could see his body again as he stepped further into the small living room, only to find himself face to face with a very angry looking human teenager.

"What are you doing, Falco!? You could have blown both of our cover's today!" he just smirked, stepping past him and plopping on the couch that had been left by the previous owner.

"Oh, quit complaining! It was all just good fun!" he crossed his arms, still glaring at Falco.

"So physically assaulting a girl is just 'good fun'?" he grunted, smirking.

"Dude, you are way out of wack with the sex scene, aint ya?" the teen looked utterly bewildered, causing Falco to burst out laughing, being cut off by Fox's voice.

"Falco! Need your help with something!" much to the kids clear annoyance, he rolled up off the couch at Fox's voice, stepping into the small only bedroom the apartment had, where Fox was pacing back and forth like a caged animal.

"Yo." He barely glanced up as he was clearly lost in thought.

"Uh, well, um, can you come with me over too Brookfield? I gotta go visit my parents and well, I could use some back up." Falco grinned, knowing from stories from both Katt and Slippy that his parents were quite entertaining. At least for visitors. Not so much for Fox, depending on the day.

"Sure. I hear they are always entertaining!" Fox's shoulders slumped, glaring at the Avian.

"Yeah, maybe for you." He stepped out into the living room after he spoke, already speaking to Chris. "Hey Chris, you got the night watch tonight. And might be on your own for tomorrow. I'll see if I cant get slippy down here to get you a break." He nodded, walking over to one of the unopened duffel bags and quickly opening it, revealing the mass of firearms with in, carefully selecting the largest of them, a massive long barreled rifle with a rectangular break on the end of the barrel, and a grey metal body. Falco gave him a bewildered expression as the kid dug in another of the bags, extracting a massive magazine, bigger than the Avian's hand.

"What. The. Flying. Fuck. Is that?" the kid barely glanced up as he loaded yellow shiny bullets the size of carrots into the magazine.

"It's a fifty caliber, semi-automatic anti-material rifle, designation M one-oh-seven. It has a two to twenty-four power scope with a built in ballistic computer that automatically detects atmospheric conditions and adjusts the scope accordingly." Falco rolled his eyes before letting his forehead fall into his hand once more.

"And what do you plan on doing with that monstrosity?" he wordlessly pointed up at the roof before ramming the mag in and cycling the massive bolt on the weapon. Fox placed a hand on Falco's shoulder to gain his attention, gently shaking his head at the Avian. Falco shrugged and followed him to the door, and with in minutes, he and Fox were out on the highway, starting the several hour drive to Fox's childhood home.

* * *

Fox groaned as he pulled into the long drive leading to his old home, grimacing as he looked at it. home hadn't changed one bit since his child hood, with it's fairly good sized slopping lawn leading up to the sprawling single story home. The garage was actually located in the basement, the driveway leading into a ramp leading there. Fox's father had set up a small workshop to work on his prized sports car down there, as well as what he called his 'man cave', a massive home theater filled with several vintage arcade machines, a fish tank, and more movie memorabilia than Fox could fathom. The up stairs was fairly simply designed around an open feeling, the front door opening into a large combined living room and dining room, the kitchen only separated off by the tile floor and a granite topped island breakfast bar. To one's right after entering was a hall leading to the bedrooms, two on the back side of the house, and the master toward the front. There was also a bathroom and back yard access on the side with the two bedrooms, fox's old room being the one at the end of the hall.

"Well, we gonna go in?" Fox glanced at Falco and gave him a sheepish grin, beyond nervous as to what was in store for him after he had been gone for nearly three years. With out another word, he stepped out of the car and stepped up the walk leading to the front door, the smell of cooking food slipping into his nostrils even through the house. He knocked the second he reached the door, finding himself face to face with his mother as the door was flung open. she looked much like himself, but without the white stripe along the center of her head, her fur being a solid orange color with a little more red than his, and deep green eyes, darker than his own. She instantly threw her arms around him, squealing at the top of her lungs, and likely waking any nearby neighbors that had yet to have awoken for the morning.

"Foxy! It's great to see you again! It's been sooo long since you came to visit!" his response was almost the exact opposite of her near explosive one, being calm and almost bored. But he couldn't stop the small wag of his tail, still glad to see her again.

"Hi mom. It's good to see you too." She finally released him from the bear hug, looking him up and down for a second before she glanced at Falco.

"And who is this?" Falco smirked, holding his hand out to her and speaking before Fox could.

"Falco Lombardi. Ace Pilot of the Star Fox team." Fox glared at him, nearly elbowing him as he spoke.

"Oh, Ace pilot? I thought all of you guys were aces?" Fox groaned, his ears pressed up against his head.

"Yes mom, we are all aces, he just is full of himself." Fox glared at Falco, who just puffed up his feathers a bit in a very prideful fashion. "Can we come in?" she smiled and stepped aside, Fox instantly scanning the room for his father, who he quickly spotted on one of the breakfast stools, facing the door with a coffee mug in hand. James McCloud looked almost identical to his son, or, more accurately, Fox looked almost identical to him, from their brilliant orange fur and color pattern, to their emerald green eyes. His ever present sun glasses were resting on the island ready to be grabbed when he decided to move, being indoors at home being one of the only times he didn't wear them. If it wasn't for the greying spots in his fur, he would be nearly indistinguishable from Fox, their builds being as identical as their looks.

"Hey Fox. How's Star Fox?" he shrugged, instantly moving over to the counter and dropping onto a stool beside his father.

"Not bad. Been a little tight budget wise, but hey, I'd rather have very little work than a whole lot of work. Lots of work usually means a big conflict." James smirked, swirling around his mug once or twice as he turned back to the morning's paper.

"So what's this mission you got going on?" Fox shrugged, guessing it was alright to tell him.

"Guarding some human girl. Pepper doesn't even know why, but Andross's goons seem to be targeting her." James nodded thoughtfully, taking a sip from his coffee as Falco moved to the other side of the island to see what was cooking on the stove.

"So I heard you guys picked up another new member after that Krystal lady?" Fox heard his mother scoff at the mentioning of Krystal, also sending a stabbing pain through Fox's chest.

"Yeah, he's human actually. Really good on the ground and brought this battle suit from earth. The thing is awesome. Held off an entire regiment on his own in it." James nodded his head in approval still sipping on his coffee.

"So, found any new lady friends yet?" Fox glanced up at his mother as she spoke, where she was tending to breakfast. Falco was standing beside her, sniggering, to which Fox had a sinking feeling about.

"No. not at the moment." James leaned closer to him, whispering into his ear.

"Or do you got yourself a man friend with bird boy?" Fox nearly gagged right then and there, his dad leaning away with a sly smirk on his face.

"ew, what the fuck dad!" his smirk remained unchanged as Falco pipped in.

"Uh, what's ew?" Fox looked at him, a pained expression on his face.

"Dad seems to have gotten the impression that I brought my significant other here with me." Falco cracked up laughing, fox shivering just from the thought of it, and glaring at the person he hoped would have his back.

"Aw, come on Foxy, that doesn't sound half bad, does it now." Falco cockily winked at Fox as he leaned on the counter, the corners of his beak up turned.

"Really Falco, why do you gotta pick on me too?!" Falco just laughed again, Fox's father joining the avian.

"What, there's no fault in asking? There is nothing wrong with being gay." He was smiling at Fox, his eyes filled with mirth, which only caused Fox's ears and whiskers to droop.

"Dad no, just… stop, please, I aint gay, alright!" James rolled eyes at Fox, clapping a hand on his shoulder.

"Oh, come on, I'm just messing with you, you make it too easy!" his mother suddenly pipped up as she dished eggs and bacon onto plates to serve the group, a fifth plate being set out as well, confusing Fox.

"Well, I'm just glad you are no longer with that…. _Whore._ " Fox growled ever so slightly as his ears flattened even more, knowing exactly who she was refereeing to.

"Krystal was not a whore." His mother instantly snapped back, wielding a fork almost like a weapon.

"Really, then what do you call those outfits she wore so much? She was showing her goods off to every man that passed her!" Fox's dad chipped in, a small smirk on his face.

"Well, I always thought she seemed fine enough." Fox couldn't help but groan, knowing that his dad didn't mean the normal definition of fine.

"James! I am your wife!" his smirk remained the same as he responded, taking another drink of his coffee.

"I know that, but that doesn't mean I cant enjoy some eye candy." Falco seemed to be thoroughly enjoying this whole conversation, silently laughing to himself.

"I don't care if you think someone is good looking, but I will not have that _slut_ spoken about in my house!" Fox nearly exploded at her, fighting off anger as he spoke very quietly.

"She is not a slut. I've told you time and time again, she is from a different planet that has yet to develop even conventional air travel. Their customs are different than ours, as well as their garb. Her outfits are actually quite conservative as far as her people go." James quietly muttered something to himself that only Fox heard, making him mentally roll his eyes at the older vulpine. Even so, he couldn't help but smile at his crude sense of humor.

"Damn, I shoulda moved to Cerinia for retirement." Fox just gave falco a puzzled look as Falco suddenly spoke up.

"So uh, what's the fifth plate for? I thought Eli was on Katina or something for college." Fox's mother glanced at the avian, smiling as she spoke.

"You'll see. I invited a guest." Fox took a breath to speak, but too late as he heard the door open, turning to see a long eared female fennec stepping through. He instantly rounded on his mother, glaring at her even more, his tail seeming to nearly explode in size.

"What the hell is _she_ doing here?!" Fox's mother looked taken aback, but was unable to speak as the new comer was already doing so.

"Now is that the way to treat an old friend Foxy?" he groaned as the woman dropped into the seat beside him, smiling.

"We haven't been friends since we broke up eight years ago Fara." She shrugged, pulling a plate closer to her.

"Well, let's change that."


	3. Chapter 3

Samantha smiled as her feet carried her through the familiar streets nearby her school, on her way back from lunch with her friend. It was a gorgeous day, not too hot, not too windy or humid either with the perfect amount of cloud cover.

"I'm surprised he didn't follow us off campus, with how he's been hanging over us." Samantha glanced at Callie, leaving her smile in place.

"Well, he's probably just really lonely. You realize no one talks to him and it's been nearly three weeks since he came to school." Callie glared at her, a rare expression to see on the canines face.

"Well, after what he did to Ava, and following us around everywhere, I don't blame anyone for not wanting anything to do with that pervert! And how we found him in the girls locker room this morning?" Samantha shrugged, understanding her reasoning. But something still felt off about the situation, and she couldn't place what it was. It was a strange feeling she kept having, ever since he had shown up, as if someone was around her that she couldn't see.

"I don't know. Maybe it really was just an accident?" Callie grunted, seeming to be still annoyed about the topic, and clearly disagreeing with Samantha. "Anyway, why don't we enjoy this nice day while we can?" Callie grinned, finally seeming happy again.

"Yeah, but don't forget that we got to set up the autumn festival after school!" Samantha couldn't help but grin at that, having had a blast at the festival last year. It was a major Cornerian tradition, almost like Easter back home but not built off a religion, centered around celebrating the years harvest and work. The school was hosting a massive party at it, using the wide open space to host dozens of games over the weekend.

"Ah, I almost totally forgot about it too! This year is gonna be amazing!" she couldn't help but grin, unable to not think of all the things her and her mother had done the year prior. "Damn, mom is working this year though."

"Well, you can spend the weekend with me!" Samantha grinned, having completely forgotten their earlier conversation.

"That sounds awesome!" the two of them continued to chat about what all they were going to do, barely even noticing that they were back at school. Just as they were about to step through the gates, Samantha suddenly froze, getting a feeling that she shouldn't quite place. Almost like a strong negative aura, like nothing she had felt before. She looked around, not even sure of what she was looking for.

"Hey, you alright Sammy?" she almost ignored Callie's worried question as she scanned the buildings and streets that she could see, the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end.

"Nothing, just, I don't know, weird feeling. Probably something I ate." She tried to shrug the feeling off before she moved into the school yard, but no matter how hard she tried, she kept finding herself glancing over her shoulder.

* * *

I looked around the area around me, somewhat bewildered at what was going on. Students were setting up small open tents and cheap wooden structures all through the schools sports field, the flurry of activity making it easy for myself to hide, but nigh impossible for me to track my target. I quickly slipped a small mic and earpiece over my ear, calling up Fox who was sitting somewhere with a decent view of the area.

"Hey Chris. You look pretty lost down there." I groaned, not for the first time wanting to be done with this job.

"Tell me about it." he chuckled as I moved through the crowd, staring at my tactical pad on my wrist, a human device very similar to Cornerian wrist transmitters, but designed for special forces and commanders to monitor the battlefield. I had added some more civilian like tech to it, giving it the ability to call phones and transmitters as well as process combat data. I currently had a scanner running off of Fox's scope feed, trying to find Samantha in the flurry of people working on setting up the festival ground.

"So I heard you had an adventure in the girls locker room this morning?" I groaned at the memory, subconsciously rubbing my face from where the female avian had slapped me with enough force to put me on my backside.

"Don't remind me. There was a recording device set up in there transmitting to someone. Already gotten the thing to Slippy so he can figure out who it belongs too." Fox sighed over the comm line my face starting to turn bright red as I knew what was coming.

"And? I know that part, Falco said you got caught?" I stayed silent for a second as I passed a construction that looked a lot like a miniaturized electronic training range.

"I got assaulted by the girl, Ava. Put me on my ass with one swing." Fox cackled through the ear piece, causing me to groan once more.

"Dude, seriously, I think you need some chick help."

"Says the one who's mother is trying to loop him in with an ex he hates. Speaking of which, don't you have a date tonight?" this time I heard Fox groan, another voice joining the comm line.

"Nice one Chris! Burn dude, burned! Better yet, burned by the noob of burning! Dude, you are just sad Fox!" I let the silence stretch for a moment before I responded, my eyes flicking to the entrance to the field, where there was a steel arch proclaiming the field name. I could clearly see the canine Callie walking along with someone who was unmistakable as my charge, a ladder balanced between them. Their other two friends were waiting for them at the arch with some sort of orange banner.

"Falco. Shut up." I muted him in the call after I spoke, closing the tac pad on my wrist before moving toward the front gate. As I approached, they set the ladder up, another being already set on one side of the arch. Before I could get there, Samantha and Ava, being the two tallest of the group of friends, were up the ladders, trying to tie the banner up onto the steel frame. One of the joints on Samantha's ladder was looking loose, almost as if it was about to come apart. I slowed to a stop in the archway, speaking up to her. "Hey, uh, you sure you should be up on that ladder?" she glanced down at me and snorted slightly.

"yeah. I'm sure. I think I can handle myself thank you." I cocked my head at her, my hands on my hips.

"No, seriously, that ladder looks like its about to collapse, you might want to…." My voice dropped out as a metallic crack filled the air, the joint snapping and causing the ladder to fall toward me, Samantha instinctively leaping off. I reacted almost instantly, placing myself straight under where Samantha was going to fall, and being knocked over as she fell on me, screaming the whole way down. The ladder, having been rocked back by her leap, was still falling toward us, myself now on my back with the girl on top of me, letting me easily roll both of us out of the way. I felt the ladder clip my arm as it slammed into the concrete. All of this happened in less than a pair of seconds, leaving the people around the entrance stunned. I glanced over at the steel frame of the ladder beside me before glancing beneath me, where the girl was staring wide eyed at me. "…. Get down….. Are you okay?" I was still hovering over her as I spoke, my arms fully extended so I wouldn't be laying on her, my knee high between her legs to help prop me up as well.

"Uh yeah. I think." She seemed totally stunned as I stood, offering her a hand up. "How did you know the ladder was going to break?" she had sat up, but her eyes were bouncing between me and the steel ladder that would have severely injured her had she been under it.

"the joint was quite obviously falling apart…" She smiled sheepishly as I helped her up, her mouth opening to speak, only to be drowned out by someone else.

"That was totally awesome!" Callie shouted that at the top of her lungs, most of the people in the area coming rushing over, giving me pats on the back and a few cheers, causing me to want to disappear on the spot, sorely wishing I had a cloaking unit.

"Um, thanks." Samantha's quiet voice drew my attention, seeing her just smiling at me, something that made me a thousand times more uncomfortable than any crowd ever could.

"Uh, don't mention it? anyone else would have done the same." She chuckled, brushing hair out of her eyes just before her eyes flicked down to my arm, turning into saucers.

"Your arm! You're bleeding!" I glanced down, seeing the small gash on my arm where the ladder had sliced the skin open. I shrugged, using that arm to reach into my cargo pocket, grabbing the small medkit I kept in there out.

"Oh, it's nothing." I quickly pulled a roll of gauze out, wrapping it around the wound several times before securing it, a faint trace of red bleeding through the brilliant white fabric.

"Nothing! You should go to a doctor! Or something!" I shrugged again, double checking that the gauze was secure before stuffing the med kit away.

"I'm fine, really."

"What happened here!? Is anyone hurt!?" A teacher's shout drew all of our attention's silencing the small crowd. The teacher was one of the few human teachers, having managed to earn a Cornerian teaching license. She was a PE teacher, and had spent time as an EMT for a time.

"Ladder broke, everyone is f-" I was cut off as Samantha spoke, glaring at me for a second.

"Everyone is not fine! You have a gash on your arm!" I shrugged again, already responding, more to her than anything else.

"Again, I'm fine, see, already patched up. No need for a medic." Ava gently smacked my shoulder, rougher than was really necessary, as she responded to me.

"Hey, cut the tough guy act already. You saved the gal, you're done, now scram!"

"Ava!" Samantha looked beyond annoyed, the teacher speaking before anyone else could.

"Everyone settle down, you, come with me. Everyone else, just get back to work, we got a festival to prepare for!" I followed the very fit woman away from everyone else, not noticing both Callie and Samantha watching us leave for a second. The gym teacher was a little taller than myself, with male short hair, black in color and very well trimmed. It clashed very well with her sharp features and sharp green eyes.

"Alright, let me take a look at that." She gestured toward the rough bandage on my arm, myself instinctively shying away.

"It's fine Miss Foley, I know how to take care of an injury." She smiled, cocking her head at me.

"We know Mr. McGlocklin. The principle told all of the staff your… special case." I took another step back from her, now suddenly not really trusting her.

"What?" she smiled warmly to me, in a way that I could not deny it as being trust worthy.

"About being a child soldier, and spending almost half your life on a battlefield. Although I don't doubt your ability to treat an injury, a second opinion is always good. Lesson for life for you." I nodded, slowly unwrapping the wound and pulling the medkit back out. She quickly inspected the wound before wrapping it in fresh gauze. "Alright, it actually isn't bad at all. Just don't go doing anything stupid with it." I nodded as she balled up the dirty dressing, stuffing it into the now empty gauze pack.

"I won't." she nodded and waved me off, letting me head back to the sports field.

* * *

"I cant believe you asked him to join us today." Callie spoke as Samantha went about attempting to control her mass of brown hair, tying it back into a ponytail, and barely glancing at the canine beside her. Callie, on the other hand was brushing a section of her fur, trying to make it look smooth and silky, not that it wasn't already.

"He did save me yesterday. Maybe he isn't as bad as he seems. We just got to give him a chance." Callie rolled her eyes, setting her brush down. Samantha had spent the night at Callie's apartment, which was larger than the one Samantha shared with her mother and belonged entirely to Callie. Paid for out of an allowance from her parents, which was large enough to pay for her apartment and everything else, where others had to work for it. it wasn't an insanely large amount, mind you, Callie actually being very savvy with her money.

"Sounds like someone has fallen for the creepy war nut." Sammy glared at her, a small smirk fighting it's way out.

"No, I haven't! I just owe him something for yesterday, and since he seems lonely, I thought he might like having a friend for the weekend." Callie rolled her eyes at Samantha, quickly slipping into her clothes for the day, some tight designer blue jeans and an equally tight cloudy yellow t-shirt that showed more of the girl's white spaghetti strap undershirt than Samantha thought necessary. Samantha herself was wearing some loose jeans and a faded grey t-shirt, simply wanting to be comfortable.

"Pfft, coulda fooled me." Samantha glared at her, starting to get a little annoyed with her.

"Callie…. I don't have a crush on him, okay? Now stop it. please." Callie just laughed as they left the small bathroom the two had been in, giving her shoulder a gentle slap.

"Oh I'm just messing with you Sammy! I think it's cool you invited him, maybe he really isn't all that bad after all!" Samantha just rolled her eyes as she headed for the door, Callie grabbing her small purse as she followed.

"So do you remember where he lives?" Callie nodded, leading the way up stairs to an apartment on the opposite side of the building from Callie's. Callie gestured at Samantha and the door, Samantha taking a deep breath before moving to knock on the door, only for it to be flung open before her.

* * *

I gently pulled the slide on my old M1911 handgun, cocking the weapon before I let the slide slip forward, making a metallic scrapping sound. I quickly pressed the trigger back, not touching the back of the grip, testing the pressure safety built into the back of the pistol. The trigger stayed firmly in place, so I quickly flicked it's main safety on and properly squeezed the trigger, to the same result, just before flicking the safety off and squeezing one more time. I smiled as the weapon clicked, completing the simple functions check of the weapon. It didn't take me long at all to load up two magazines with forty-five caliber rounds, quickly sliding one of the eight round magazines into the grip of the weapon and yanking the slide back. As soon as the first round was chambered, I flicked the safety back on and slipped the weapon into a holster safely hidden at my back. The second loaded magazine went with it, in a slot built into the hidden holster. As soon as I was done with that, I loaded several long thirty six round magazines with more forty-five caliber rounds, dropping them into a small, single strap go bag, following them with a military Kriss Vector, it's stock folded over it's side for storage. I quickly slung the bag, about to head for the door when Fox stopped me.

"Seriously? I don't think you need the bag kid." I shrugged, one hand still on the sling for the bag.

"It has my vector and such in it." he stared at me for a second, a clear 'And?' expression on his face. "I….. might need them?" Fox sighed, grabbing the bag and trying to pull it off me. I instantly hardened my grip, not wanting to drop the bag. Something in the back of my mind was telling me not to go unarmed today. "No. I'm not going unarmed. Got a bad feeling." Fox chuckled, still trying to get the bag off my shoulder.

"You always got a bad feeling kid." I glared at him, still firmly holding onto the bag.

"And how often have I been right?" Fox finally let go, one of his ears cocking to the side as he raised an eyebrow at me.

"Do you really have that bad of a feeling about this? I mean, you got your sidearm right?" I nodded, answering both questions unintentionally.

"Yeah. I don't know, just have a feeling that today would be the day to make a move. Open city lots of people, plenty of cover for movement, police would be tied up with the rowdier partiers. I would make a move today." Fox shrugged plopping into a chair set up in the apartment's small living room.

"Or are you just nervous about hanging out with a girl all day?" I shrugged, honestly not caring at all.

"I honestly have no idea what you are talking about Fox." He rolled his eyes at me, smirking.

"Come on man, you've spent most of the past three weeks watching over this girl, and even I have to admit, she's pretty, even if she isn't even remotely like me. Or close to my age." I raised an eyebrow at him, my mind inadvertently going back over the past few weeks. And I couldn't help the small rush of blood up into my checks.

"Yeah, maybe a little. But my job is to protect her, not swoon her. I don't mix business and pleasure Fox." He chuckled, smirking at me

"Wait, you have a side other than business?" I nodded, already moving for the door.

"Yeah, do you not remember the car or the mech? And what happened to that date last night?" he groaned, one hand covering his eyes.

"I didn't go. Tried to hide and got bombarded with calls from mom until midnight last night. Anyway, the car is just friggan cool, and the mech doesn't count. It is work related after all." I shrugged, walking through the hall to the door, opening the door only to instantly freeze, Samantha and Callie having literally been about to knock. I felt my gut flutter for a second, feeling like I was about to puke before I tried to shove it down.

* * *

Samantha smiled warmly at Chris, trying to calm his startled appearance while doing a quick glance at his apparel. He was wearing some dark grey cargo pants, one of his usual items, and a blue short sleeve button up shirt, completely unbuttoned, showing his white t-shirt beneath. A black utilitarian strap ran over his chest, a small holder holding what he used as a communication device, a modified military tactical pad. Essentially an advanced smart phone able to be mounted on a wrist for use on the battlefield, managing a soldier's HUD system. And she only knew any of that because of Ava, who Samantha had been slowly learning that her friend of several years knew a lot more about warfare than she let on. Why he carried one was beyond her.

"Um, hi." Samantha spoke as kind sounding as she could, suddenly feeling much more nervous about this.

"Hello. Lets get going." He stepped right past them, barely even looking at the two of them as he did so. On his back was a small single strap bag that clearly had something in it.

"So uh, what's in the bag?" Callie and Samantha were both raising eyebrows at him, mirroring each other's expressions.

"just some food. In case we don't find something." He blushed slightly, earning him a small smirk from Callie.

"I like the way you think. At least when it comes to food." Samantha smirked as well, walking past them in the hall.

"Well, come on, let's get going!" it didn't take them long to walk the two miles to the school, Samantha and Callie idly chatting the whole time. Chris on the other hand, had remained totally silent the whole time, his eyes on their surroundings.

"you know chris, you can say something from time to time. It's not illegal." Callie's voice was very sweet and playful in a way.

"Of course. Just have nothing to say." The group stopped at the main gate to the school, Samantha smirking as she spoke to him.

"you said you like music, why not start there?" he groaned, his shoulders dropping slightly.

"Alright. I have a pretty good music collection. Couple thousand songs, all from earth." Samantha raised her eyebrow, unable to help but giggle a bit.

"You know, depending on the artist, you could make a fortune selling that here. A lot of Cornerians like human music, and most humans didn't get a chance to bring much with them." Callie's voice was as light and sweet as it usually was, with a little bit of deviousness bleeding through.

"I doubt I have anything special in there." Samantha beckoned the group to follow, passing through the main gate and into the school, large groups of people mixed with vendor stalls and games filling the area around the school.

"well, let me scroll through it sometime and ill let you know." He shrugged at Samantha's words, seeming to barely be paying any attention to either of them, his focus being entirely on their surroundings. She glanced at his forearm, seeing it still had gauze wrapped around it. "How's your arm doing by the way?" he glanced down at it and shrugged, going right back to scanning the crowd.

"It's fine. I've had much worse in the past." She smirked, gently elbowing him to try to get his attention back.

"Like what? And I'm over here ya know, the crowd aint the ones talking to you!" he turned bright red, still only glancing at her.

"well, I've been shot before…. And I really do not like crowds." He seemed to be shriveling up on the spot, looking more and more nervous as people passed.

"You've been shot before!?" Samantha's glanced at Callie, who had been focused on the carnival games around them. Her eye's were wide with shock, staring at him.

"Well, yeah, several times actually, both by plasma and bullets. Plasma hurts way more though."

"But you are just a kid!" Samantha spoke up before Chris could, smiling.

"I've been shot before too. Happened while i was fleeing earth. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot more humans have been at least shot at before." Now Callie was staring wide eyed at her.

"But why have you not told me this before!?" Samantha rolled her eyes, veering the group toward one of the games set up there.

"It was just a ricochet, and I've shown you the scar on my shoulder from it, silly. It's part of why I hate guns so much. Now come on, lets play some games!"

* * *

Callie frowned as she glanced back behind them, seeing the beyond bored expression on Chris's face. They had managed to get him to play a few of the games, finding that he had some considerable skills at a ring toss that had abnormally heavy rings, able to practically stack the rings up anywhere he pleased, making dropping them over boxes all too easy for him. But a human game throwing a light air filled ball into a hoop, he seemed absolutely terrible at, over shooting every time. They had touched a few others, but he had shown absolutely no interest the whole time. She sighed drawing Samantha's attention, who had been busy thoroughly enjoying an ice cream cone, Callie having already finished her own.

"What is it Callie?" she glanced at her friend and sighed again before speaking.

"I feel like all we are doing is boring the crap out of Chris back there. I mean, you would think he would have been ecstatic to not be alone but, well, he clearly isn't." Samantha shrugged, still eating the ice cream as she listened.

"Maybe carnival games aren't his thing?" Callie shrugged her eyes scanning the crowd as she thought of what to say. Her eyes stopped on a shooting game, a small smile slipping onto her muzzle.

"Hey, he's always mentioning guns, why don't we go try that?" Samantha groaned, the last of the ice cream cone gone.

"Why!? I hate guns!" Callie grabbed her hand, getting Chris's attention as she dragged Sam along behind her.

"Oh, come on, they aren't real! Lets go chris!" she barely glanced at the other human behind them, seeing him shuffle forward a little faster to keep up. They arrived at the stall, seeing a set of screens displaying bunches of cartoony Aparoids and other deadly creatures from around the galaxy.

"Um, you two sure you want to play this? Looks really stupid." Callie gave Chris an offended expression as he stepped up next to them, quickly shoving him forward as she responded.

"Just give it a try." He groaned taking up a booth next to her as she payed for both of their plays, Samantha slinking away, just far enough to not really have a clear view but still able to be seen by them, a disgusted look on her face. Callie scooped up one of the stall's 'weapons', which looked much like the famous carbine used by most Cornerian forces. She felt a little silly holding the toy, the cord snaking away from the handle making it all the more complicated to hold.

"I hate stockless, piece of-" Callie near instantly cut him off, knowing what he was about to say.

"Hey, watch your language, there are kids here too." He shrugged, holding the weapon with a sort of confidence she didn't expect to see from him, one hand on the handle, one lightly gripping the section under the barrel. He also kept his index finger straight, covering the side of the area the trigger was in, unlike Callie who had already squeezed the trigger several times. He was also leaning forward slightly, raising the toy to his eye so he could look down the thing, whereas callie was just roughly pointing it at the screen. Everything about his position seemed calm and composed, totally relaxed, yet tensed and ready to move at the same time. The person started the game, small pulsing sounds emanating from the toys as they pulled the trigger repeatedly. Callie laughed a little, having fun trying to shoot the targets, missing way more often than not. She glanced at his section of the screen, her jaw slipping open as he systematically hit every single target, the toy in his hand barely moving as his finger squeezed the trigger over and over, his score climbing higher and higher. A few other people had started to notice, stopping to watch as he neared the perfect score, which the stand advertised that it would win you a thousand credits for reaching it, no one on the leader board shown between rounds even being more than three quarters of the way there. Suddenly, the last ten targets bounced onto the screen, three of them managing to slide off the screen before he could hit them, making the only three he had missed.

"Whoa. Dude, I've seen a few CDF guys play this today, and not one of them got a ninety seven! You almost got the perfect score dude!" he shrugged, clearly not caring.

"damned thing needs to be zeroed. Shoots so far left its not even funny." Callie frowned at the disgruntled expression on his face, the attendant for the stall speaking before she could.

"Well, a second place prize gets you anything in the stall." His eyes started flicking between the mass of plush toys filling the space, looking utterly bewildered. Callie instantly bounced beside him, her eyes picking out a plush version of an earth fox, a creature that she already knew that Samantha loved.

"Get that little plush fox! Samantha would love it!" he shrugged, the attendant getting it down without a word being spoken. He took the toy and followed Callie as she walked over to where Samantha was skulking. "Hey Sam! Chris got himself a present for you!" she glanced up at them, one eyebrow raised, and her arms still crossed.

"um, well here." He held out the toy, looking completely unsure of himself. She took the toy from him, a small smile spreading across her face.

"its cute, thanks." She suddenly hugged him, something that he clearly did not know what to with. He gingerly hugged her back, clearly more than willing to let go when she did.

"Well, uh, I'm going to go get us some food. See ya in a bit." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder as he spoke, near instantly turning and walking away before either of them could respond. Samantha was still smiling, looking at the plush toy.

"Well, that was sweet of him." Callie smirked, still a little puzzled by his reaction.

"Yeah. you know, he was scary good at that. The guns thing." Samantha raised an eyebrow at Callie.

"does that seem like something I would care about?" Callie shrugged, glancing around the crowd around them, trying to spot him.

"Hmm, I wonder if he's found something to eat yet?"


	4. Chapter 4

I tried to get my body to stop shaking as I searched for a food stall, not even realizing that I had already passed several already. Suddenly, the tacpad on my chest started vibrating. I quickly pulled my earpiece from my pocket, seating it on my ear as I answered the call.

"What is it?" Falco's voice responded, him being the one pulling sniper duty today.

"Dude, you lost or something? You been wandering in circles for a good while now." I stopped where I was, my eyes closing as people simply swarmed all around me.

"I'm fine Falco, just doing a sweep."

"Pfft, as if. Just thought you should know, that Canine you been hanging out with just got dragged off by some other canine." I was already reaching for my sidearm when he spoke again, clearly seeing the action through his scope. "Whoa there, not that kind of dragged off dude! Chillax, as in, she went and joined someone else. Ya might want to get back over to Sam ASAP. Shesh, gun crazy moron." I sighed and closed the call, making my way back toward the girl. I was back to wandering the crowd with my eyes, the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end, unsure as to why for a few seconds. Then I realized that there were two people not far away from where the girl was still standing, by herself, both wearing jackets. One was a German Shepard looking canine, the other an ape. Both of them seemed to be focused on where Samantha was. I suddenly sped up, feeling adrenaline start coursing through my body, all of my senses kicking into overdrive. I fought the urge to reach for my weapon as I reached her, glancing to where the two figures were, seeing them paying attention to what I was doing.

"We need to leave. Now." I didn't look at her as I spoke, keeping my focus on them.

"Uh, why?" I almost cursed, the two figures suddenly splitting away, moving through the crowds and becoming very hard to spot.

"Just trust me, we gotta go!" I reached back without looking, my other hand already snaking under my shirt to secure my weapon. I felt her with my fingers, instantly grabbing her soft flesh to try and drag her with me. Almost as soon as I grabbed her, I felt a fist slam into my face, my vision blackening for a second as I dropped to my knees. small specks of false light danced in my vision as I started to stand back up. "What the hel…" my voice dropped out as I looked at her, her arms covering her chest, a wide eyed glare on her now bright red face. "Samantha, we need to go, now!"

"No, just stay away from me creep!" I took a step towards her, already starting to speak again.

"Seriously, we ne-" before I could finish, she was slapping me across the face, disorienting me for a second. By the time I had looked up, she had disappeared into the crowd. My tacpad went off again and I instantly answered. "What Falco?"

"How'd it feel?" he had an almost maniacal delight to his voice.

"It hurt like hell, you tracking still?" the people around me where already ignoring me again. Falco cracked up laughing over the call.

"Dude, not the punch! Her tit?" my shoulders slumped, now realizing why she had suddenly become so hostile.

"Damn it, will you just tell me where she went?" he chuckled again, not really responding for a few seconds.

"Sorry, taking a bit to get her back into scope. Why the freak out bro?" My eyes where already scanning the crowd again, searching for the canine or the ape I had spotted.

"Two people wearing jackets, were watching her."

"Dude, people wear jackets here all the time. Probably just guys coming from Katina. Too used to the heat to think these are normal temps." I started to move toward the exit of the field, noticing something on the ground near one of the support struts. Once I was closer, I recognized the small plush fox toy I had given Samantha. I sighed and picked it up, staring at it for a few seconds before stuffing it away in my bag. "Ah shit, outside the gate, move! Got a couple guys in jackets bagging her!" I cursed, the handgun slipping out of the holster, no one in the immediate area noticing it as I sprinted out of the schools gate, seeing a truck with a covered bed, the door slamming shut just before screeching away, the human gas powered vehicle not being limited like Corneria's electrics.

"Green pick up, human, no plates, covered bed. Can you track it?" Falco instantly acknowledged, leaving me in a mad sprint for a utility truck left parked outside the apartment we were using, a small jet bike being hidden inside.

* * *

Samantha stormed through the crowd, her fingers tightly clutching the fox doll as if she was trying to pop it's head off simply by squeezing it. she arrived at the arch off the field, looking at the doll one last time before angrily throwing it aside.

"damn pervert." She stomped her way out of the school yard, headed back home, not noticing the two people following her. she heard rushed footsteps behind her, turning to find a canine rushing forward, a Taser in his hand. Before she could think to respond, he had jammed the Taser into her side, covering her mouth to muffle her scream.

* * *

Samantha's head pulsed with pain, it taking her a few seconds to even realize she was feeling it. she tried to move her hand to her temple, only to find it securely zip tied to her other hand, both being behind her back. She was lying on her side, on a very cold hard surface, confusing her for a few seconds as she sat up. Suddenly, it clicked into place, remembering the two men with the taser. Her eyes were still adjusting to the dark room when she heard someone talking.

"Damn it, how long is it gonna be till that damned Lupine gets here!? The cops have gotta been called by now! we're too close to her last known to be safe here!" Samantha tried to remain quiet as she struggled to her feet, a small sliver of light coming through a cracked open door being the only reason she could see the steel shipping containers walls.

"Simmer down. Still got a couple of hours. And we'll be fine here, very few people know this place aint being used no more. Besides, remember the paycheck Noah." She gently nudged at the steel door, wincing as it squealed open. before she could step back, the door was yanked open, clawed digits grabbing her arm and yanking her out into an open warehouse, only lit by a group of absolutely filthy windows. She cried out as she hit the hard concrete floor, pain echoing through her shoulder from where she impacted.

"I see you are awake now. hmph. Keep it quiet and you'll stay that way." A german shepard like canine was the one speaking, having been the one to yank her from the container. As he spoke, he stepped up to her and crouched in front of her face, a blaster loosely in his hand. "Got it?" she nodded frantically, absolutely terrified now, her eye's fixed on the blaster. "Good girl. Don't get up." He stood, holstering his pistol and starting to walk a ways away when a loud familiar bang filled her ears, blood spattering from the side of his head. She rolled onto her rump, trying to skitter backwards as more gunshots ripped out. A flash matched each shot up on a balcony across the warehouse from her, three more Cornerians were in the room, each one taking a pair of bullets to the chest. she couldn't make out the figure on the balcony, being swathed in shadows. She more felt than saw another figure coming rushing from a door hidden in the darker area of the building, the orange furred fox running straight for her, blaster in hand. she shrieked and tried to back pedal more, only for him to gently grab her arm.

"Shh, it's okay. I'm with the cops." She nodded, her entire body shaking, unable to rip her eyes away from the blood seeping from the fresh corpses around her, bringing up memories she never wanted to see again. She felt cold metal touch her wrists as the vulpine cut the cuffs off, just before a pair of red blaster bolts erupted from an office door, half hidden behind the container. She screamed again, flattening to the ground as the Fox fired his own red bolts back.

"McCloud to all responders, we got a runner out the east side of the building, I think I hit him. Hostage has been secured." She felt his hands frisk over her body before rolling her over. "Hey." She didn't respond, causing him to speak again. "Hey, you okay?" she nodded, her voice near silent as she responded, still shaking uncontrollably.

"Ye-yeah, I think so." He nodded, helping her to her feet and guiding her out a door.

* * *

Callie rushed behind Chris, who she had run into on the way to a warehouse that was currently being broadcast all over the news. There were police cars all over, cops swarming the scene. She could see near the police line, a single ambulance, it's rear doors open with Samantha sitting on it's deck, a blanket over her shoulders. A police officer and an orange vulpine were both talking to her.

"Sammy!" she perked up at the sound of Callie's voice both the canine cop and the vulpine looking back at them. A pair of cops were moving to stop callie from crossing the police line, but the cop was shouting before they could reach her.

"Let them through!" she ran past the holographic barrier, the blue strip turning red and alarming as she did so. As soon as she was at the ambulance, she was hugging her friend, who she could feel quaking in terror. Samantha was extremely pale, and shockingly cold to Callie, almost like her shaking was a shiver.

"McCloud, let's go discuss this in private. I think we have asked miss Warren enough questions." Callie didn't pay any attention to the two of them as the cop spoke, quickly walking away.

"Are you alright Sammy?" she released her friend as she spoke, still holding the humans shoulders.

"Yeah. I'm fine. Got a bit of a head ache but I'm okay." Callie smiled, breathing a sigh of relief.

"Thank goodness! When I heard you had been kidnapped, I was so worried! I cant believe you were found so quick!" she smirked, gesturing off at the vulpine that had just walked off.

"That guy is some hotshot mercenary. Apparently one of his men saw me get nabbed and they called the cops and mounted their own little rescue mission before the cops could get here." Callie smiled and let go of her friend, Chris suddenly speaking up, and drawing Samantha's attention.

"I guess he was in the right place at the right time. Just glad he killed those guys, although it would have been nice if one hadn't gotten away." Callie gave him a confused expression, Samantha instantly speaking up.

"And how the hell would you know that?" he instantly turned bright red at samantha's surprisingly angry words, pointing his thumb as the tacpad on his back pack strap.

"Uh, the news. Been all over it?"

"And I thought I told you to stay away from me you creep?!" he took a step back as Samantha full on shouted at him, his hands up like she had him at gun point.

"Wait, what are you talking about!?" Callie tried to jump in before either of them could say more, Samantha grunting, her arms crossed over her chest as she continued to glare at Chris, seeming to completely ignore Callie.

"What are you even doing here?" he slipped his bag off, pulling the small plush fox he had given her earlier out.

"To apologize. And you, uh, dropped this." She slipped off the ambulance, ripping the toy out of his hand and tossing it away.

"Apology not accepted, now go away!" he sighed and walked off, back down the street he had just come down.

"Sammy!" she glared at Callie as Callie gave her a stunned expression. "What the heck was that about?" Samantha groaned, sitting back down on the ambulance.

"He grabbed my boob earlier." Callie instantly blushed, going wide eyed.

"really!?" Samantha nodded before falling back on the deck of the ambulance. "How?"

"He just reached back and well, grabbed it. he kept saying we had to leave for some reason. He's gotta be insane or something!"

"Maybe he was trying to protect you? Saw something you didn't?" Samantha snapped back up, glaring at Callie now.

"Why? Because I just happened to get kidnapped right afterward?" Callie nodded, Samantha continuing as she slumped back over. "Wonderful. You think he just made a mistake, and I should forgive him cause it was totally fine! Yeah no, not happening!" Callie shrugged, hopping up on the edge of the ambulance.

"Okay. Are you able to go home now?" Samantha sighed, causing a frown to form on Callie's face.

"No. they want me to go to the hospital for a full check up, just in case." Callie smirked, gently smacking her friend's thigh as she slipped off the ambulance's deck.

"Alright, call me when you get out, m'kay?" Samantha sat up and smiled, at least some color having returned to her face.

"I will, see ya Callie!" callie nodded and walked back past the police line, seeing the small plush doll in the street, sighing before she scooped it up and walked toward her apartment.

* * *

My hand tore the handgun back out of it's holster as someone knocked on the door to the apartment, leaning into the hall leaning to it with the weapon raised. I slowly moved forward, peaking through the eye hole in the door once I was close enough, recognizing Callie in her filmy yellow shirt. The second I saw her, I relaxed, tucking the sidearm away before opening the door.

"Hey Callie, uh, what are you doing here?" I tried to shield the rest of the hall from her, opening the door as little as possible.

"Uh, I picked this up. Thought I would give it to you." She was holding the small plush toy, a little dirtier than it had been. I accepted it, more than a little confused.

"Um, thanks, I guess." She smirked crossing her arms as she spoke, one of her eyebrows raised.

"So did you really grab Sammy's boob earlier?" I felt blood rushing up to my cheeks, knowing I had to have turned bright red.

"Oh, um, yeah I really didn't mean to. I was just trying to get her to leave…" I hoped she didn't ask further, but realized too late that she was going to anyway.

"Why?" I sighed, rubbing the back of my head as I tried to figure out what to say.

"I just, uh, had a bad feeling." Callie smiled, patting my arm.

"Okay. Just a word of advice, pay a little more attention as to where you touch people. Give Sammy some time to cool down, she can be a little hot headed at times. See ya at school!" I nodded and waved bye to her, breathing a sigh of relief as I closed the door, sliding down it to sit up against it.

"What, Merc life got ya down?" I groaned as Falco spoke, dropping the toy on the ground.

"God, I hate people. Why did you two pick me for this job?" Falco chuckled, walking over to me and picking up the toy.

"Aw, come on, it aint that you don't like people, you just don't know what you're doing! Lighten up, you'll get better! Besides, you need good social skills as a merc. Gotta be presentable and think about reputation bud!" I grunted before standing up, moving into the one small bedroom to go and sleep. "Sleeping already? It's barely eight?" I shrugged, pulling my holster off and removing the handgun, setting both on the small bedside table in the room.

"Yeah, and I was just in a firefight, and have been pulling most of the night watch shifts so you two can get some sleep. Good night." I slumped onto the bed, asleep almost before my head hit the pillow.

* * *

 _2024, Earth_

 _I gathered around the small table with the other team leaders of our small rebel group, the youngest of all of them. But my lack of age was over looked by the small group, having proven time and time again as a skilled fighter and leader. On the table was one of several of our maps, mapping out the region around what remained of Colorado Springs._

 _"Alright, our target is here. We expect little to no defenses, it's no more than a landing zone. Holst's and Roth's teams will move in from the north, Riley and jona's team will be providing top cover from the remains of this church here, to the north east, while Chris and my own teams will assault from the east. That should keep us out of each others lines of fire. Once in range, set up your gun teams. We will all open fire on my signal." The speaker was a woman, in her early twenties with short black hair, cut that way so it would be out of her way. The whole group were wearing a mixture of old civilian and military plate carriers and body armor, and various military style weapons._

 _"What's the target Garrick?" my voice was quiet, barely loud enough for the group to hear me. She smirked before she responded._

 _"A group of refugees. We kill them, stage it like the UEG attacked, and we turn that alien force to go after the UEG, and get us some alien support. We get them on our side, and we've all but finished the UEG." I stared at her, too stunned to respond. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine she would want to attack civilians._

 _"we cant just murder civilians! The whole point of this was to stop the senseless killings!"_

 _"I know Chris, but we gotta do this! There are less of us by the day! With out Corneria's support, we are done for! This is the only way to get it!" I felt anger starting to boil up under my skin, my fists clinching as I tried to fight it down._

 _"There has to be another way! I am not going to kill civilians! No way in hell!" she slammed her fists into the table top, upsetting the various map markers and other items strewn across it._

 _"Damn it Chris! Everyone else is on board with this! If you don't want to help, then get your useless ass out of here!"_

* * *

I startled awake, ripping the handgun off the nightstand and flicking the safety off. I could hear someone moving in the hallway, prompting me to slip out of the bed and move to the door, waiting for the footsteps to pass the door before quietly turning the well greased nob and hinges, making absolutely no noise. The hall was too dark to clearly see the figure, all I could really make out of them was that they definitely weren't a member of the Star Fox team. I raised my weapon at the figure's back, my left hand supporting the right to help keep the weapon stable. I was about to get the intruders attention when someone shouted behind me, slamming into me at the same time.

"Look out!" my weapon clattered out of my hands as I fell into the wall, the smaller female unable to do more than knock me off balance. I near instantly twisted and body slammed her into the other wall. She cried out and let go, giving me and opening to grab one of her furred arms and twist it behind her back. I barely managed to rip a small knife out of my boot, pressing it against her throat.

"Who are you, what are you doing here!?" a second female voice spoke from whoever I had been aiming at a second ago.

"Whoa there, it's Katt. Where's Fox at?" I instantly let go of the female feline I was restraining, slipping the knife back away.

"Oh, sorry Katt. Didn't know you were coming." I stepped back to the door, flicking the light switch on, illuminating the corridor. Katt was already in the main room of the apartment, staring at me with her arms crossed. She was a black furred feline, about the same age as Fox. She was a fellow mercenary that we had run into a few times while operating on Katina. She was also a very old friend of Falco's, and had become tight friends with Fox over the years as well. The other feline was much smaller, just under my height actually, and looked like a walking lynx.

"Oh, Fox asked if I could help out on your little mission here, for a cut of the reward that is. Oh, and before you ask, this is Miyu Lynx. She's your age, her mom asked if I could watch her for a few months, so that's why she's here." Miyu had already stooped over, picking up my pistol and offering it too me. She was wearing a skin tight sports bra and short shorts, and a very small jacket on that she had left open. Katt on the other hand was wearing a tank top and jeans. Neither of them had hair, most felines didn't, unlike most of the races, being simply covered in fur.

"Thanks. And sorry about my greeting there." She shrugged, her electric blue eyes fixed on me, a surprising smile on her muzzle.

"Don't worry about it. I'm fine. No harm no fowl right?" I shrugged, making sure the safety was on before slipping the gun away in my pants.

"Well, uh, there's only one bed in the apartment so I guess you two can take it. Fox isn't here and I think Falco crashed on the couch." Katt glanced behind her, into the main room, just before shaking her head.

"Nope. Guess he skipped out on ya too. Shouldn't one of you be watching the gal?" I shook my head, slipping past both of them to plop on the couch in the still darkened room.

"No. she's still in the hospital from the kidnapping today. She's fine. Fox was out trying to do some digging on the kidnappers. She's safe for the night." Katt smirked as I lounged on the couch, already slipping back asleep.

"Alright, night little buddy. Sleep well. Come on Miyu, catch the lights for him." The light from the hall cut out, just before the door to the bedroom closed, leaving me to fall asleep.

* * *

Fox sat down on the stool, the bartender in the small bar simply nodded to him, the bar being part of both his and his dad's usual free time hang outs. Speaking of his dad, the fellow vulpine plopped onto the stool next to him.

"You called?" Fox smirked, leaning on the bar.

"Yeah. I'm sure you heard about the foiled kidnapping by now?" he nodded so Fox continued. "Well, here's all of the case files and info we got on the gal that was kidnapped. We got no idea why Andross's guys are after her. thought you might be able to figure it out dad." He smirked, accepting the small drive Fox slid to him.

"Been a merc for nigh on ten years, and you still gotta ask your old man for help?" Fox shrugged as the older vulpine spun in his chair, leaning his back on the counter so he could watch the room at large.

"Nah, just to busy to look into it myself. I got a social moron I gotta keep out of trouble, and hopefully teach a few things to him." James smirked, fox spinning around and mimicking his position.

"You don't happen to mean a certain human do you?" Fox chuckled, answering his dad's question right then and there. "Yup, you mean him. Is he really as bad as you say?" Fox nodded, a small chuckle slipping out.

"yeah. no social skills at all. Nearly blown his cover half a dozen times already. And he freaks out over the smallest things. Anytime a crowd passes by, he's practically drawing on them."

"Well, how can you blame him? Crowds on earth are terrorist targets. That's the way he has spent the past ten years of his life, running from war or fighting in it. never even been in school in his life. So he's a little out of his element. You gotta understand what the conflict on earth has caused. There are likely a lot of people his age with issues just like him. Likely manifest differently, but you get my point. Try to put yourself in his shoes." Fox nodded, letting himself slip into his own thoughts.

"I guess if all I knew was war, I'd be pretty screwed up in the head too. Poor kid. How much do you know about him?" the bartender swung back by, dropping a pair of drinks by on the bar for them, already knowing what the two of them would want.

"A lot. I did my research on the way here. Grew up in the rocky mountain region, his town being a hot spot from day one. Spent the first four years of the war as a wandering refugee, until his mother and sister were killed, then picked up a gun. Not a whole lot on him for the next five years. The rest, you already know." Fox grabbed his drink, a beer from Katina he picked up from hanging around Bill in his younger years, a katinian native.

"Yeah. rough life. Hard to imagine that he has spent more time on the battlefield than I've spent in the air. It's just hard to wrap my head around. He has more experience then all of Star Fox combined. If you don't count you and Peppy that is." James smirked, taking a sip of his whiskey.

"Yeah, I think I got him beat, serving in the Venom wars and all. Damn that was some nasty shit. Ah well, Star Fox was born from that war. Just glad it never touched Corneria." Fox sighed, taking another drink of his beer. The venom wars happened nearly three decades ago, before Fox had even been born. James had met Fox's mother after being shot down and injured, his recovery on Corneria causing him to meet Vixy. Their fast forming relationship had been strained over the next few years, James being across the system fighting for several years after. Peppy had not only gone through training with James, but flown alongside him for the whole duration of the war, the two of them forming the original Star Fox team just weeks after it ended.

"yeah. can you get mom to stop trying to hook me and Fara up? It's bothering the crap out of me." He chuckled, downing his whole shot in one go.

"I'd have better luck convincing an Aparoid to be friendly. Besides, it aint coming from your mother. Fara's been coming over for the past six months trying to catch you visiting." Fox groaned, sinking in his chair and downing his beer in one long chug.

"Point taken. I'm guessing I'm about to get an earful for ditching her the other night." James nodded, ordering another shot, Fox getting his own second round as well.

"Yep. I'm surprised you haven't already, with how much those two talk. Was Fara this controlling of you while you were dating? And so obsessive?" Fox nodded, letting out a sigh.

"It's part of why I broke up with her. she wanted me to work at her dad's company as a test pilot, not work with you." James grunted, finishing off his second shot before standing and stretching, adjusting his sunglasses.

"Hmm, never told us that. Anyway, I should go. Wouldn't want to drink you under the table again, pup." Fox chuckled, fist bumping with him before he left. A sigh slipped out of his mouth before he finished his drink, paying his tab for the night before slipping out the door. His wrist computer chiming with a message from Katt saying she had arrived at the apartment, already settling in. he smirked and put his hands in his pockets, marching off toward the apartment.


	5. Chapter 5

**So this chapter has one of my favorite scenes in it, particularly, the end of this chapter. i think it's comedy gold, please guys, let me know what you think!**

* * *

I stretched, my eyes still closed as I hadn't fully awakened yet. I slowly sat up on the couch, my eyes opening to find the Lynx from last night cooking at the small stove, smelling like it was something very good.

"Wh-aun. Sorry, what are you doing?" She chuckled, not even glancing back.

"Cooking breakfast sleepy head! heard you had a long day yesterday, thought you might like something warm for breakfast." I shrugged, double checking that my sidearm was still snuggly in the back of my pants, moving over to the window and scanning outside. I had already damn near memorized the view out the window, so anything out of place was easy to spot. Aside from the naturally shifted positions of cars and a few people walking, nothing was out of place. "Looking for something out there?" I shrugged, letting the dark curtain that covered the window fall back into place.

"Making sure there isn't someone watching us." she rolled her eyes at me as she dumped the eggs she had been cooking onto a serving plate, leaving that on the counter next to a plate of bacon and toast. I quickly dished out a serving, sitting back down on the couch to eat. The girl did the same, dropping next to me on the couch.

"You can slow down you know. You don't have to eat that fast." I glanced at her, having already nearly finished the plate.

"You're an easy target while eating. Eating quickly reduces the chances of an enemy catching you while you do so." She rolled her eyes, scooping up a piece of bacon.

"You can relax, there are three cops at the hospital, watching over your friend, as well as Slippy." I glanced at her as she spoke, her instantly biting into the bacon when she finished, and clearly thoroughly enjoying it.

"there is a threat to us. if they identified us, we're likely now a target. And how do you know that?" She smirked, swallowing her bite of food.

"Oh, Fox got called by slippy before he could leave this morning. I overheard the conversation. You were still passed out on the couch. I'm surprised you didn't attack Fox when he came in, like you did us." I finished off the plate of food before me before I responded.

"Well, I did wake up, just recognized his clumsy ass." She smirked, silence falling as she ate, myself rinsing the plate off before putting it away.

"Well, Fox said you got the day off today. Want to go do anything?" I shook my head, opening up a drawer at a small desk that was in the corner of the room, a bunch of weapons cleaning supplies and tools inside. I was already disassembling my weapon and beginning the simple cleaning process.

"Clean weapons, prep mags, prep gear, do homework. Im behind on a lot," Miyu bounced up off the couch, setting her unfinished plate on the counter as she practically bounced her way over, grabbing the Vector from where it was leaning on the wall, near instantly disassembling the weapon.

"I'll help you then." She was smiling as she set most of the weapon on the desk, pulling a clean rag out of the drawer and wiping carbon off the bolt.

"How did you even know how to take that apart?" She smirked, just finishing wiping it off and starting to lightly oil it as she responded.

"I'm over at Katt's all the time. She has this three-dee holo trainer with every known weapon in the universe on it. I like to play around on it, take as many of the weapons apart as I can. Been though not even an eighth of the database in nearly a year of working on. Ran into the vector on there just a couple nights ago actually." She set the bolt down, working on the firing chamber and the receiver it was housed in.

"Hmm, you don't strike me as someone who would have any interest in that sort of thing." She smiled, doing a quick wipe down of the rest of the weapon before slipping it back together.

"Looks can be deceiving. You of all people should know that." She leaned the weapon against the wall again before leaning herself up against the table, still smirking.

"What do you mean?" she chuckled, cocking her head at me.

"Really? You do not look at all like what you are capable of. Name another seventeen year old who can pilot battle mechs, shoot guns, and fight better than most trained soldiers? And yet, you still look like an average teenager. A little fit, yeah, but not out of this world." I shrugged, honestly, not really caring. I quickly reassembled the handgun, sliding it's magazine back in and racking the weapon, chambering a round before flicking the safety back on. I stood and stretched moving off toward the bathroom to shower without saying a word, a small sigh slipping out of the lynx's mouth. As soon as I was finished, I toweled off and slipped back into my usual uniform, still feeling naked without a combat vest of some sort on. I settled for a belt and holster, slipping my handgun away before stepping back into the living room area, where Miyu was sitting around on the couch, looking absolutely bored. I was about to open my mouth to speak when there was a knock on the door. Miyu just glanced up curiously. I, on the other hand, slipped my weapon out as I approached the door and looked through the peep hole. Callie was on the other side, looking almost half asleep in a red t-shirt and baggy sweatpants. I slipped the pistol back into it's holster, freezing as I moved to open the door as I realized what could happen if she saw me wearing a uniform.

"Uh, Miyu, grab the door for me, I gotta change!" I didn't even give her a chance to respond as I darted into my room, hearing her move to the door and open it. I dumped my belt and holster onto the bed as I heard Miyu greet callie.

"Hi, um, who are you?" Miyu's voice was shockingly clear through the wall, and very welcoming.

"Hmm, something smells good in here….. oh wait, sorry, my name's callie, I was looking for a friend of mine, but I must have the wrong room, sorry." I quickly dropped my grey combat top, untucking the grey t-shirt in hopes that it would be enough, stepping out into the hall, trying to feign a curious look.

"Uh, hey Callie, what are you doing here?" she saw me and smiled for a second, glancing at Miyu again.

"Oh… um, chris, who's this?" she jerked her thumb at Miyu, who gave her a sweet smile.

"Oh, uh, friend of mine. We… uh…." Miyu picked up for me, seeming able to sense that I had no idea what kind of excuse to make.

"My name's miyu, went to school with chris on Katina." She held her hand out warmly, smiling. Callie politely shook it before leaning past her to speak to me.

"Uh, Chris, can I speak to you real quick?" she jerked her thumb out into the hall and I shrugged, stepping past Miyu and into the hall. Miyu gave me a pat on the shoulder as I passed. I shut the door behind me, crossing my arms as I faced her. she was looking me up and down, almost as if she was about to laugh.

"feeling a little emo today? All grey, black…. Are those combat boots?" I glanced down and mentally cursed myself. "And why do you got you pants tucked into them?" I shrugged and tugged my pants out of my boots, trying to play it off.

"Must'ave not been paying attention this morning. Just got up." She chuckled at me as I straightened up, smiling lightly.

"So, a friend from Katina is visiting? A female friend? You sly dog!" I looked at her, utterly confused as she continued to smirk at me.

"i…. what are you talking about? She's just visiting for a week or two?" Callie rolled her eyes and laughed.

"Seriously chris! A gal doesn't travel millions of miles just to chill with a 'friend' for a few weeks! She likes you!"

"Well, we are friends… friends tend to like each other…. Right?" I was completely unsure as to what I was saying, just trying to find a way to not blow my cover.

"Oh wow, you are thick!" she laughed before she continued. "I think Miyu there wants to date you, silly!" a dozen different warning alarms seemed to go off in my head at once, scrambling to figure out what to say.

"No no no! she's here with a friend!" I hesitated for a second, unsure if that was enough. "Her parents asked her friend to watch her for a few weeks, and her friend had some work on Corneria so I offered them a place to stay, that's all!" she laughed, still smirking in a way that made me beyond uncomfortable.

"a friend huh? How old is this friend?" I shrugged, not actually knowing Katt's age.

"Like, twenty seven, I think? I don't know, I've only met her a few times…" she put her hands on her hips, cocking her head to the side as she continued.

"And your parents are okay with them staying? I mean, these apartments aren't real big, so….." her voice dropped off as she saw my expression, startling. At the mention of parents, I had seemed to freeze, a look of pain on my face. A single tear leaked out as I managed to move, reaching for the door. "Whoa, hey, you okay? What's wrong!?" I closed my eyes, my hand still on the door nob.

"I…. My parents are dead. They were killed on earth. I've been living with a friend of mine." Before I could react, she was wrapping her arms around me, squeezing me tightly. I barely managed to not attack her as adrenaline coursed through my system.

"I'm so so sorry Chris! I didn't mean to bring that up!" I shrugged, having no idea what to do as she continued to hold me.

"I uh, it's okay. Um, what did you come over for anyway?" she let go of me, wiping away the moistier that had built up in her eyes.

"Oh, Samantha was released from the hospital a few minutes ago. I thought you might like to know and I don't have your number so I couldn't just text you….." she was making a rolling motion with her hands as she talked. I shrugged holding my hand out.

"Gimme your phone." She nodded and I quickly found the messaging app and sent a text to myself. Cell phones had been a major means of communication, with both the resistance and later Star Fox, so it was something I knew my way around. "There, save my number as whatever you want." She nodded and something seemed to hit her, her expression changing in an instant.

"Oh, I smelled food when I got here! I don't have anything cooked up right now, is it okay if I eat with you three?" I glanced at the door, rubbing the back of my head as I fought to figure out what to say. I didn't want to be rude to her and say no, but the living area was filled with firearms and equipment. Before I could formulate a response, the door swung open to reveal an out of breath Miyu.

"Oh, hey, there you are! Was getting a little worried about you!" Callie smiled at the feline, speaking before I could.

"You wouldn't mind if I grabbed some food from you, would you? I really don't want to cook this morning and whatever you all have is smelling wonderful." Miyu smiled and gestured inside, stepping out of the way.

"Why not? I made too much for the two of us." I went wide eyed, staring at Miyu. The second Callie had passed her, she mouthed to me to cool it, gesturing inside. My mind raced as I stepped through, scared shitless about what Callie was about to find. That fear melted away as I stepped into the living area to find all of the equipment that had been strewn about was gone. I breathed a sigh of relief as Callie happily reached toward a cabinet to grab a plate, only for Miyu to stop her, almost forcefully.

"Hey uh… plates are above the sink, silverware in the drawer under the food." She looked very worried for a split second, it disappearing as fast as I saw it. Callie smiled, opening the correct cabinet's and pulling out a fork before piling food on her plate.

"Thanks Miyu! Chris told me you came here with someone, where are they?" Miyu chuckled, spinning a chair about at the small dining room table and plopping into it, backwards, as Callie sat down at the table.

"Katt? She had to go to work already, as well as Chris's guardian, Peppy. He aint around much anyway." She smiled at miyu, happily chewing away at her food before answering.

"Okay, cool. You seem much more talkative than Chris there." Miyu chuckled as I dropped onto the couch, trying to ignore them both.

"Oh, he's just not a people person. Takes a bit to warm up to him. He's cool though, when you do." Callie laughed as my ears started to turn red.

"Oh, so that explains a lot. Does he normally try to spend time with people, even though he's terrible at it?" Miyu laughed, and I had no idea what she did, assuming that she shook her head by what followed. "Oh? Really? Hmm. I think he has a crush then." I tried to shrivel away, hating this situation even more. _Why, out of all the things they could talk about, why did it have to be me, WHILE I'M SITTING TEN FEET AWAY FROM THEM!_ My mind yearned to scream that at them as Miyu spoke again.

"Oh? Let me guess, human gal, name's sam, I think?" I finally looked at them, utterly confused. I hadn't said a word to her or katt about my job, much less who I was guarding.

"Samantha. But since you know that, I'm guessing he's talked about her?" Miyu giggled and nodded. "So he does have a crush on her! I knew it!" I groaned and stood up, finally speaking.

"Excuse me, I am right here you know! I do not have a crush on her!" Miyu just laughed, making a shooing motion toward me.

"Oh, hush you! So what's this girl like!? Getting him to say anything is like pulling teeth out!" I groaned and fell back on the couch, wishing I could just disappear.

* * *

Miyu smiled as she waved goodbye to the canine, smirking as she closed the door.

"Okay, girl talk is over now! you may speak!" she heard a groan from the couch and chuckled, walking back into the living area. "Oh, come on, it's funny and you know it! besides, Callie told me how you've been acting, and this will give you a cover to continue being the awkward kid wanting to join them. Closer you are too her, the easier it is for you to protect her." he groaned again, sitting up again to glare at her.

"But it isn't true! I got no use for dating, what so ever! There's the next mission and that's it!" she sighed, about to speak when he spoke, his voice very quiet. "But, at the same time, thank you for hiding all of the gear. I couldn't think of a polite way to say no, and if she had seen that stuff, my cover would have been completely blown. So, again, thanks." Miyu dropped over the back of the couch and ruffled his hair as she dropped beside him.

"Your welcome, tough guy. And come on, she showed me a pic of this Samantha chick, and she's really cute! Why not try dating her? if you can manage it that is." He grunted, glaring at her.

"I have no use to dating her. my job is to guard her until I get told otherwise. As soon as that mission is done, I don't care if I ever even see her again." She grimaced, patting his arm.

"You sir, need to rethink your priorities. Alright, if you never want to see her again, what about me? Ever want to see me again?" he seemed to freeze for a second before his shoulders slumped, himself looking away.

"I get the feeling that I don't get a choice in that." She shrugged, him suddenly launching off the couch. "I'm going to go see about finding a shooting range, get some of my rifles zeroed to the atmospherics here." She sighed as he moved to his room, coming back with his top and holster back on, a pair of rifles on his shoulder and a massive one in his hands. She recognized one of the rifles as his usual old beat up human assault rifle, with it's underslung grenade launcher. The second one on his back was longer, but had roughly the same build. Mounted on it was a bipod, rangefinder laser, and an eight power scope. She suddenly, made a decision, launching to her feet to grab the vector from where she had stashed it.

"I'm coming with you, and we are doing more than zeroing rifles. I'm gonna show you how to make a range day fun!" She smiled to him, to which he just shrugged, heading back to his room to collect the ammo.

* * *

Fox locked the door behind him as he slipped into the small apartment, frowning at the fact that the lights were off. He had spent most of the day at the police station, dropping off a report on the kidnapping and rescue and explaining to several officers why he had a seventeen year old on his team. He had also run into an old friend, Bill, not even having known that he had become a cop. The two had later spent the rest of the afternoon swapping stories at a nearby park.

"Yo, Katt, Miyu! Chris, anybody home?" he knew Falco and Slippy were out watching the girl, covering for Chris so he could take some well deserved time off. Sadly, he had to be back at school the next day, but it did give everyone else some time to sleep. Fox had not expected this job to be as taxing on his team as it had been. He frowned as no voice responded, flicking the hallway light on. The living room looked empty from where he was standing, his feet carrying himself there and flicking the lights on to find it clean and empty. There wasn't any equipment scattered around the room, like there normally was, and beyond the furniture, the only visible sign of life was a set of dishes in the sink. He sighed and decided to check the bed room, only to hear the key turn in the lock, the door opening to reveal Chris stepping in, a pair of rifle cases slung over his shoulder. He was looking back and oddly enough, when he noticed Fox, he smiled.

"Hey McCloud. Sorry I wasn't here when you got back. Miyu dragged me out." He spoke as he stepped in, still holding the door as the sixteen year old feline in question stepped in, a pair of cases over her shoulder as well, but one of them was smaller than the others.

"Oh don't even try that! You're the one who wanted to go to the range!" he glared right back at her, already retorting.

"And I am _not_ the one who wanted to go eat and visit the mall all afternoon!" Fox just rolled his eyes and got out of their way as they shambled past, both of them dropping the cases in the living room along side a pair of range bags.

"So how did you two go to a range? You are both under age?" Chris waved him off, smirking.

"Outside the city, they got a few unmonitored free ranges. Scared the living crap out of some Cornerians when we fired the Barret though." Fox chuckled at that thought, knowing how much quieter plasma weapons were than ballistic weapons. And the barret being the massive high caliber sniper rifle it was, had quite the bark to it to go with it's bite, the one time he having heard it fire deafening his sensitive ears for several minutes afterward.

"I'm not surprised. Have fun at least?" Miyu instantly nodded, smiling. Chris on the other hand, merely shrugged, a small weak smile on his face.

"I guess. Shooting at those bouncing targets was pretty fun though. Glad she got ahold of them." Miyu grinned victoriously, lightly punching his shoulder.

"See? I told you you'd have fun!" he just glared at her as he opened the case with his usual rifle in it.

"First, never touch me again, second, yes, the range was fun, but the rest? Screw that shit!" She laughed as she started unpacking, Fox content to listen, curious as to where this was going.

"oh? You were letting Callie touch you earlier?" He groaned, covering his face for a few seconds before responding.

"Ugh, don't remind me. She caught me off guard is all. And if I hadn't been trying to keep a cover I would have put her on the floor!" Fox couldn't help but interrupt.

"Uh, callie?" Miyu was instantly responding, not even looking at him.

"Oh, some canine came by this morning to let us know that Samantha was out of the hospital, and she ended up hugging Chris." Fox shrugged, accepting that as an answer. "And you had some fun at the mall! You were laughing at all of those toy guns! And I know you enjoyed lunch! I'd be willing to bet you haven't eaten good food in years! You practically couldn't stop smiling!" Chris was starting to turn red, glaring at Miyu.

"Oh, shut up, will you? Shesh, maybe it was a nicer day than I expected okay? Get off my case woman!" Fox just chuckled, leaving the two of them bickering back and forth as he showered, still able to hear them, muffled through the wall.

 _"See, I told you it would be! You just gotta trust me a little! That's all!"_ Fox was just about to turn the water on when Chris's quiet voice mumbled through the wall. If it wasn't for Fox's sensitive ears, he would have never heard it.

 _"I don't trust anyone anymore Miyu. Get used to it. now lets get these guns cleaned. I might need them later and a clean gun is more reliable than a dirty one."_ Silence fell between the two, or, as far as Fox knew, it had, as he turned the water on, feeling the warm water soak though his thick fur and wash away the day's grime. He let out a relieved sigh, shutting the water off and moving to step out of the shower, only to nearly jump out of his skin as he saw Katt standing in the bathroom, smirking at him.

"God damn it Katt! I'm trying to take a shower here!" she just chuckled, tossing him the towel that had been on the rack so he could hastily cover himself.

"Quiet down Foxy, I don't want them to hear us! and you really should lock the door if you don't want people barging in on ya." She smirked at his glare as he secured the towel around his waist. "Seems like my plan is working pretty well though. I knew those two would get along!" Fox raised an eyebrow at her as she leaned on the counter, her voice barely more than a whisper.

"Uh, what?" she laughed, crossing her arms as she stared at him.

"Really? Come on, did you think I brought Miyu for fun? You said he needed to learn to be social. It'll help him to have someone who actually knows what he's doing here to learn that. Plus, she has no problems with humans, and is as crazy as I am. So why not?" Fox rolled his eyes as he leaned on the counter next to her.

"Don't tell me you are trying to play match maker for him. If so, you might want to find a nice bunker to hide in before he goes ballistic." She chuckled, glancing down his torso again.

"Speaking of matching, why don't we go a few rounds, like we used too, eh?" he glared at her and she put her hands up backing away a bit. "Hey, I'm just saying, it was fun when we were going at it, and you have _clearly_ stayed in shape." He rolled his eyes at her, chuckling.

"Quit being desperate Katt. Now shoo, I want to dry off and change now." she shrugged and stepped back through the door, closing it behind her so he could safely towel off. Just as he started the door slipped open again, causing him to jump again.

"Mmmm such a good view…." Fox glared at her again, unable to stop the blood rushing through his cheeks.

"Damn it Katt! Git, SCRAM! SHOO!" she giggled as she slammed the door shut, hollering at him through it.

"I told you to lock the door, didn't I Foxy!?"


	6. Chapter 6

_"Get that two-forty going Miles!" I slid in the slick mud formed by the light rainstorm a few hours ago, the cracks and whips of plasma and bullets ripping past intermingling with gunshots as I dropped beside my heavy gunner. I had managed to convince my whole team to stay here, twelve other resistance fighters. Not one of us could believe that we were now fighting people we had fought and bleed alongside, outnumbered nearly four to one by them._

 _"I- I cant! I cant shoot them!" the Hispanic was panicked, clearly in the middle of a personal battle about what was going on. A battle that I myself could understand. I quickly grabbed the gun and dragged it in front of me, it's bipod resting in the muck._

 _"Just feed the rounds then. We can not let them harm those refugees." He nodded as I racked the machinegun, sighting it in on one of the advancing gun teams. We had split into three teams to try and counter their assault, them not expecting us to be engaging them. We had opened the fight by detonating several claymores, followed by rifle fire. We even had time to dig ourselves shallow foxholes for cover, one of which being where I was lying right now. as soon as I had the gun team in the sights, I rammed the trigger down, pulling the weapon deep into my shoulder as the weapon repeatedly bucked back, too fast to even think of counting. After a second or so, I released the trigger, watching as two of the five man gun team dropped, dirt clods flying in the air to mark where the heavy rounds impacted. I smiled as I could tell the three diving to the dirt didn't have the machinegun they had been moving. I ignored them, shifting to spray another burst at one of the other advancing teams, watching as another group dropped, some not of their own choice. I stopped really paying attention to exactly what I was doing, letting my body react to what it was seeing. My shoulder was starting to ache from the constant fire, the barrel steaming to a point that it was getting hard to see past it. "Miles, barrel and belt, now!" he reacted to my shout as I popped to my knees, bringing my M468 around and firing the underslung grenade launcher. I watched the round impact exactly where I had aimed it, blasting the survivors of the gun team from earlier with a high explosive round. I barely glanced down as the weapon beneath me was fired, emptying the last five or ten rounds on the belt before miles slipped a thick glove on. In seconds, he had released the burning hot barrel, slamming the spare barrel into place and grabbing one of the other two hundred round ammo cans we had brought. Meanwhile, I started firing controlled pairs anytime I saw someone trying to move up, seeing them drop from the rounds hitting them more often than not._

 _"Gun's ready!" I didn't even acknowledge him as I dropped back onto the weapon system, continuing the torrent of death that was being spat from the weapon, watching in a sort of grim satisfaction as the enemy soldiers started to run, firing until I couldn't see them anymore._

 _"Give me an up people!" Miles instantly nodded to me, another voice from a short way away shouting back._

 _"I'm hit! Don and Becky are dead!" I cursed to myself, pulling the magazine from my weapon and gently tossing it to test it's weight, discovering it as about half empty._

 _"Miles, you see those bastards come back, you fire without hesitation, got it?" he nodded as I slapped the magazine back in, ensuring the weapon was on safe before sprinting back to the other fox hole. The man who had been shouting was sitting in the back of the simple pit, securing a makeshift turnicate on his leg. His pant leg was already drenched in blood, his body quivering as he kept twisting a pen in the fabric, tightening it down until he tied the pen in place. "How bad?" he looked up at me, quivering as I quickly uncovered the wound to discover a hole, twice the diameter of a quarter, burned clean through his leg. It wasn't bleeding at all, at least showing that the turnicate was working. I quickly checked over the rest of his body, looking for signs of another injury. "Hey, you're gonna be fine, you got that?" he nodded, and I gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze as my radio beeped in my ear, announcing an incoming transmission._

 _"This is Raider three-two, they are pulling out from our position, but we got eyes on UEC dropships at long range, several carrying prefabs! Looks like that are setting up a FOB close by!" I groaned before pressing on my earpiece to key the radio._

 _"Raider three-six here, copy that. Gimme three at the northern position. Got two down, one wounded, and someone is gonna pull some recon with me, how copy, over?" my earpiece beeped again as I stared out over the battlefield, noticing several of the bodies out there still moving._

 _"Uh, three-two here, solid copy but we both took some casualties too. Were down to six all told." I cursed, glancing down at the tacpad on my wrist._

 _"Solid copy, all teams, fall back to our secondary. Grab what munitions you can from the dead. Three-six out." I sighed as I began stripping mags off the dead, knowing the others could use the lower caliber bullets. "Hey Miles, grab your shit and get ready to move! We are falling back to the secondary." I faintly heard him acknowledge as I helped the wounded man stand, draping one of his arms over my shoulder before beginning to move._

* * *

I groaned as I started to become aware of the world again, trying to shake the memories that kept cropping back up away. I opened my eyes and glanced around from where I was sleeping on the floor, nothing at all under me or over me for that matter. I checked to make sure that my boots were still snuggly fit, my pants still tucked into them before I stood, a snore from the couch drawing my attention. I smirked at the young sleeping feline, rolling my eyes at her. Miyu had one arm draped off the couch, the blanket she had been covering her self with bunched up and hanging half off the couch, exposing her night clothes, which consisted of nothing more than a bra and underwear. I didn't pay any more attention to her as I moved toward the bedroom, hoping to slip in and grab clothes for the day with out waking Fox and Katt. Katt was taking the bed, fox using some sleeping bags and an inflatable bed in the bedroom to sleep. The past few days had been more than crowded in the small apartment, even with Slippy and Falco sleeping elsewhere. The apartment was definitely made for one person, or maybe a couple at best. The door to the bed room opened silently, and I managed to pull out a clean red T-shirt and baggy green cargo pants out, the baggy pants letting me easily carry a tiny smith and Wesson 380. caliber pistol on my ankle, a much better concealed weapon than the full size forty-five I had been carrying. The tiny weapon could easily be mistaken for a wallet if it was in someone's back pocket. As soon as I had the clothes, I slipped out of the room and into the apartments surprisingly spacious bathroom. I quickly stripped and showered, hearing a shocked shout from the living room as I shut the water off. Evidently, either Katt had awoken and seen what Miyu was wearing, or miyu had realized that the blanket had fallen off. I guessed toward the prior as I heard a loud thump following it.

"Miyu! Where are your clothes!" I could clearly hear Katt's voice through the wall.

"Katt, you aren't my mother! And I've never slept in more than my underwear! I usually sleep in less, actually!" I rolled my eyes and dressed, making sure the 380. Defender was strapped to my calf securely, it's holster resting on the top of my combat boot.

"No, I'm not! But she would flip out if you were sleeping in a room with a boy half naked like that!" I stepped out into the living area, heading straight for the pantry to find some food, more than likely cereal. "Chris! Cover your eye's!" I glanced up at them, Katt freaking out the second I did so and trying to put herself between my eyes and Miyu. She was wearing black felt pajamas covered in pink hearts.

"Jeez Katt, it's not that big of a deal. I used to bath with women all the time. Get rid of the fur and I'm not seeing anything new to me." Katt's jaw dropped for several seconds, long enough for me to grab a bowl and fill it with milk and cereal, and sit at the table before she could recover.

"Y-you what?" I glanced at her, not seeing what about my statement was wrong.

"In the resistance, we didn't get access to many commodities, like showers and bath tubs, so we would all go down to the creek as squads and bath, when we were near a creek. Had three different women in my squad." I shrugged, focusing on eating my food as Katt continued to stand there, dumbfounded. Miyu giggled at her and grabbed her own bowl of cereal, plopping down in the seat next to me while still in her underwear.

"So, me being half naked doesn't bother you? Don't you get horny or something?" I raised an eyebrow at her, swallowing my cereal before I continued.

"Why would i? you aren't anything special." As soon as I was finished speaking, her hand was slamming into my face, nearly going face first into my cereal bowl from the force of it. "Ow. What the hell was that for!" she was furiously glaring at me, her fur standing on end.

"You are such a fucking asshole!" I shrugged, not really caring why she was suddenly angry.

"Ok. Whatever." She growled and stormed off to the bathroom, grabbing clothes from her suitcase on the way.

"No wonder Fox brought me here. You really have no clue what you are saying, do you?" I raised an eyebrow at her, receiving a chuckle and eyeroll, Fox's simultaneous chuckle from the hallway drawing my attention.

"Get all of that homework done last night? Can't be paying you just to fail and be unable to guard our target." I nodded, gesturing at the already packed bag.

"Finished it last night. Miyu gave me a hand." he nodded, starting up a coffee maker.

"And weapons prepped?" I nodded, pointing toward the corner, where my combat vest, the vector, and my M468 were sitting.

"M-four-six-eight is oiled and ready, vest is loaded with mags, mags fully loaded. Vector is loaded and ready to rock. Three-eighty is strapped to my thigh, forty-five in the school bag. Good to go. You ever figure out that bug in the girls locker room." Fox stopped for a second, a look of intense concentration on his face.

"Oh, yeah, slippy said it belongs to a peeping tom. Gave it to the local cops. Nothing to worry about now." I nodded, quickly finishing my food before grabbing my bag and heading for the door. "And chris?" I stopped and looked back at him, a smirk on his face. "I know I've told you several times already, but don't go around grabbing women's tits today." He winked as I rolled my eyes and slipped through the door, not having the faintest clue what the day had in store for me.

* * *

Jessica Garrick sighed as she stared at the map in front of her. the only remaining members of her resistance group were standing about the room around her, about twenty in all. Holst and roth were standing with her at the table, Holst showing his current plan to her. Holst was a middle aged former soldier, tough, and been through the grinder. His brown hair, green eyes, and sharp features would have been something to behold, if half his face wasn't mashed, the eye on that side being an eerie white color. Over a year ago, after a section of their cell betrayed them for a bunch of refugees, he had been nearly killed by a grenade round.

"Their schools are built like fortresses. Taking one over and turning it into one wont be a problem. Then all we gotta do is hold out until they meet our demands." Garrick sighed, looking at roth. He was a much younger fighter like herself, being in his early twenties. Slightly hefty, but none of it being extra weight. Almost everyone had gone toe to toe with him in combatives matches. Only two had managed to bring him to a draw, his blonde hair and blue eyes seemed almost innocent in a way, something that anyone who knew him was far from the truth.

"There is an anti-air tank in the gym, here. It's deactivated, a remnant of a period ten years ago. Military never pulled it out of storage there. I believe I can jury rig it into working order, if you think you can pilot it. you are the one who understands Cornerian after all." He gestured at holst before he continued. "We can then gather all of the students and staff here, save a select few, with minimal man power. Our first goal, after locking down the doors, should be the tank." She nodded, looking over all of the notes across the table about the operation, having gone over the blueprints and entry plan dozens of times already.

"Hey Diaz! You ready to get payback?" one of the fighters, who had been by himself, sharpening a combat knife, looked up, smiling.

"You know it Jess! I'm killing that bastard for taking my leg from me!" one of his legs was fully cybernetic, left that way after a plasma round had ripped through it when he betrayed the rest of the group, rescinding his decision after he was left to die on the battlefield by his young team leader. She smiled as she spoke to the group at large.

"Get your gear on people! Today is the day!"

* * *

Samantha groaned as she sat in her seat, her face buried in her arm in an attempt to ignore Callie, a plan that was far from working.

"Come on Sammy! Give him a chance! He really wants to apologize! He made an honest mistake!" Samantha made no motion to respond, Ava's voice speaking up.

"Do you not remember him slapping my ass?" she lifted her head up and smirked, staring at Callie's frowning face.

"He keeps saying that he didn't do that. I think you are just making it up because you don't like him!" Samantha rolled her eyes, freezing for a second when her eyes settled on Chris walking into the class, his eyes searching the room the second he entered, as they always did.

"Oh god, he's here. Damn it, I wish he would just die. Between him and everyone asking about that bloody kidnapping, I swear, I'm going to punch someone!" she dropped her head again and moaned, startling as a male voice spoke.

"Well, if you really need something to punch, I'm right here." She instantly snapped up, glaring at chris as he watched her, a surprisingly sad look in his eye.

"Go the fuck away already! How many times do I have to tell you!?" he frowned, sighing.

"Samantha. I am well and truly sorry for what happened on Saturday. I saw some shady looking characters…. I was just trying to get you to leave. For your sake." He was very calm while he spoke, Samantha feeling like he had practiced saying that.

"Fuck off already, jeez." She mumbled to herself as she dropped her head to her arm, unable to stop the blush that came up at the memory of that day.

"Hey, come on chris. I'll help you with class again today." She frowned as Callie spoke, hearing her stand and move to the back of the room. She found it odd that Callie was going so far out of her way to be around him, as if he didn't deserve to be totally alone. She huffed as Maria sat next to her, smiling.

"How you feeling today Sammy?" she glanced at her friend and smiled weakly to her.

"Wishing my best friend wasn't a stupid stubborn canine?" Maria rolled her eyes at Samantha, who was too lazy to pull her head off her desk, just shifting to look at maria. As much as she wanted to admit it, she was beyond stressed out.

"Oh, she'll come back. And maybe Saturday really was just a mistake? He seems to be trying pretty hard to apologize, so he must be sincere about it?" she groaned and looked out the window, still not lifting her head off the desk.

"Great, not you too!" Maria just chuckled, resting a hand on her shoulder.

"I'm just saying, maybe forgiving him will take a weight off your chest? You've been acting, well, funny since the kidnapping." She groaned, having been through a similar version of this conversation with practically every person in her life by now.

"God, you are sounding like everyone else! Why does everyone think something is wrong!?" Samantha heard a gentle sigh behind her, just before Maria responded.

"Because that's how you are acting right now. you're moping around, being lazy, sleeping in class, and being an all around bitch to ninety percent of the local population. None of that is your usual self so yeah, something's wrong." Samantha just ignored her from there on, not even noticing she had fallen asleep until Ava was shaking her awake.

"Hey, Sam, it's lunch time silly, time to wake up!" she groaned, looking at everyone else's notes and cursing.

"Why did you guys let me sleep! I'm so behind already!" Maria gently patted her shoulder, her soft smile honestly reminding Samantha of her mother.

"Teach said to not worry about you for the week, he wont be counting the assignments against you." Ava clicked her beak several times before she spoke up.

"Yeah, if I had known all it took to get out of school work for a week, was getting kidnapped, I woulda payed someone to kidnap me by now!" Maria chuckled and rolled her eyes at the avian, Samantha smiling a little. A low grumble from Samantha's stomach reminded her what time it was.

"So, who's up for food today?" Maria sighed again, looking down at her back pack so she could finish packing her stuff.

"Callie, not that she seems to have remembered. She and soldier boy seem to have run off. Sounded like they mentioned the cafeteria." Samantha sighed and stood, attempting to stretch her surprisingly stiff body.

"Great. Who wants to go get subs then?" the two of them nodded, Ava opening her mouth when a small black cylinder was tossed into the room, a brilliant flash ripping out of it as it banged too many times for Samantha to count. Her brain reeled as she clutched the sides of her head. When she finally managed to open her eyes, the room seemed to be spinning, everything blurred and whited out as her eyes fought to readjust from the torment they had just suffered. Several figures rushed into the room, all with assault rifles of various makes in hand. she could barely understand the shouting that was occurring.

"-one in this room is now my hostage! Miles, Diaz, start securing the rest of the school, move everyone else to the gym. Leave this room here, I'll use them for the broadcast! And remember, no casualties, except him! Now move it people! We have five minutes to secure this building and set up defensive positions!" the speaker, as far as Samantha's dulled hearing could tell, was female, carrying a smaller rifle than the others. Fear froze her in place as her brain finally caught up with her, no longer able to even think.

* * *

I groaned as the lunch bell finally rang. My notes for math were strewn across the desk like a hurricane had come through, and the only thing I could appreciate about them was the fact that I was starting to comprehend what the class was studying.

"Alright, let's take a break. Get some food too." I glanced over at the canine as she spoke, smiling at me. "You are doing really well chris! It wont be long and you will be teaching me! At least, when it comes to math." I nodded, grabbing my bag, being extra careful to not let her glance inside. After several seconds of rummaging, I realized that I hadn't packed a lunch that morning. I groaned yet again before closing the bag, my stomach growling. "No lunch?" Callie was staring quizzically at me.

"I forgot to pack it." I was shaking my head as I spoke, mentally berating myself for my stupidity this morning.

"Well, let's go get some food from the cafeteria! I haven't been in a while and the food isn't terrible!" she had jumped up out of her seat as she spoke, so jovially and cheerful that even several people across the room from her smirked at her. I shrugged and stood, about to grab my bag from where it was when she stopped me. "No, just leave it! you'll be fine!" I groaned, but complied, glancing back at the bag and praying that no one tried to peek inside.

"are we allowed to bring cafeteria food back to the classroom?" she looked at me with a puzzled expression for a second.

"Why? Oh….! You want to be able to see Sammy while you eat, don't you?" I instantly wanted to splurt out the truth, that I didn't want to leave my bag unattended with a loaded firearm in it, but stopped myself before I could. _Remember what your team keeps saying? This will be easier if you try to get close to her!_

"yeah, maybe." I grumbled that out, callie smirking at me.

"Knew it! and yeah, we can be back there pretty quick, so long as the line isn't long." I nodded, for once, not staring out of the window. As a resistance fighter, I had grown so used to moving every day to a new location, with new sight lines and new terrain, that I was easily getting bored with seeing the same old views and locations, no longer even looking around anymore. I heard a rattling set of bangs, my hair standing on end as I recognized the sound. Callie was looking back toward the hall we had just turned off of, a confused look on her muzzle. I grabbed her arm and forcibly dragged her into the women's bathroom nearby. There were several shrieks as the three women standing by the mirror inside noticed me. Callie looked like she was about to slap me as I nearly shouted at her.

"Stay in here, and no matter what you hear, DO NOT STEP OUTSIDE!" she gave me a confused look as I crouched, pulling my pantleg up to reveal the holster, drawing the small handgun as soon as I could. The three other girls instantly scampered away from me at the sight of the weapon, Callie just with a look of understanding on her face. Several more sets of rattling bangs went off, reverberating through the walls.

"I….. you….. that was your vest in the apartment, wasn't it?" I stared at her, completely confused until she spoke again. "When I ate breakfast there, your bedroom was cracked open. I saw the vest on the bed. I thought maybe your guardian was a cop or something at the time." I just shooed her toward one of the stalls.

"Yes. Now stay here, and stay quiet." Without even looking back, I was out the door, pulling a small heads up display device out of my pocket.

* * *

Callie stared blankly at the door, utterly shocked. She had grown so used to seeing the stumbling, unsure person that chris was, that façade falling away the second the bangs started. It was as if the person she had just been speaking too was a completely different person from the chris she knew. Every movement and action of his seemed to be with a purpose, no hesitation, no flinch, perfectly calm. To a point that it scared her. she had never met someone who could become terrifyingly calm like that in her life. Several minutes dragged by as she continued to stare at the door, the rapid rattles dissipating.

"What the hell is this, some sort of practical joke?" One of the girls, a feline, moved to step past Callie and leave the bathroom, only for callie to grab her arm.

"D-Don't go. He-he meant what he said. We should stay put. O-okay?" the girl looked at her, almost disbelieving until she saw the blood drained expression on the collie's muzzle. The girl backed away, towards the wall, her two friends staring at her with a look of disbelief. They all jumped as three bangs echoed through the room, two rapidly, followed by a the third a second or so later, and so loud that Callie had no doubt they were with in a few dozen meters or so. She remained rooted where she was, too terrified to move. Suddenly, the door was kicked open, Chris backing in, half-carrying another person behind him, who he gruffly dropped on the floor. He was now wearing a long, strange earpiece, with two prongs, held in place by a headband. The first prong was aimed toward his mouth, clearly a mike. The second wrapped around toward his eye, a hologram formed just an inch from his left eye. He had the same cold confident look on his face, but even Callie could see the waver in it. the person beneath him was wearing a ragged camouflage uniform and vest, a rifle across his chest that was quickly stripped off and tossed aside, the same as a handgun. His leg was bleeding profusely, a small pool already forming beneath it. there was also a small scrape on the side of his head, marking a blow there. His hands were tied behind his back with zip ties. He was human, dark haired and dark skinned, several years older than any of them. Chris suddenly slapped him across the face, pinning him down using his weight alone. The soldier startled awake, quickly glaring at the individual on top of him.

"What the fuck are you guys planning here Miles!" as Chris spoke, he drove the muzzle of his handgun into the man's injury. He cried out in agony for a second before he spoke.

"I aint tellin-" there was a muffled bang, still loud and sudden enough to make Callie jump, but it was nothing to the scream from the soldier as a yellow casing popped away from the gun in chris's hand.

"wrong answer Miles!" he groaned on the floor, sweating profusely.

"We're gonna use this hostage situation to demand support for the fucking war! We got a tank they keep here from the Lylat wars! It's in the gym with the rest of the students!" he groaned again, clearly fighting against his bindings as he writhed in pain. Callie covered her eye's, not wanting to see what was going on.

"And why the hell are you working with _them_ again! I thought they made it clear that civilian lives don't matter!" he chuckled mirthlessly at Chris's response.

" _they_ didn't abandon us! you did! you ran off to check out that god damned base and never returned! and we got that little girl you seem to fancy first on the fucking firing line! Oh, I so hope Corneria lets a hostage die you useless bastard!"" a strange garbled buzzing filled the room for a second, before Chris ripped the mic off the man's radio, a female voice spilling out.

"-iles! Davidson! Where the hell are you two! Who fired those shots!?" Miles suddenly shoved chris off with his good leg, managing to swing his arms under his legs and press the talk button on the radio.

"It's McG-" the statement was cut off with a bang, blood and grey bits, along with a hand full of white shards splattering across the floor from the back of the man's head. Callie shrieked, trying to avert her eye's before the image was burned into her memory, too late.

"Miles and Davidson are dead. See you soon you bitch." His statement was cold and heartless, beyond what she thought was possible. She heard him shuffling around for a few minutes, her eyes snapping open as something cold and rough was shoved into her hands. She looked down, going wide eyed at the blocky pistol being pressed into her hand.

"N-no, do-don't! please!" she tried to step away, utterly terrified, but he held frim to her hand, bringing it up to her chest and pressing her other hand onto the grip.

"Callie. I need you to be strong for me, okay?" she looked into his eyes, seeing the soft, almost gentle expression on his face. "I need you to take this pistol, and if someone other than a cop, Star Fox, or me come in here, shoot them. Okay?" she was silent, quivering in fear. "Hey, I need you to respond. I need to hear you say that you will protect everyone here. You need to be strong right now." she shakily nodded, seeing a small genuine smile on his face.

"I…I will protect everyone here…." He wiped a tear off her muzzle before patting her shoulder.

"I know you will. I gotta go now. I'm sorry." Before she could respond, he had turned and walked out, the dead man's rifle in his hands. Before she could stop them, her eyes drifted to the corpse now sitting in the bathroom, breathing a sigh of relief at the sight she saw. He had pulled the man's vest and top off, draping the top over what remained of his head. Her eyes dropped to the heavy black handgun in her hands, her entire body shaking as she stared at it. she closed her eyes before retreating into a stall, focusing on what she needed to do.


	7. Chapter 7

Fox startled when he heard his phone go off in a rapid frantic beeping. They had all linked their phones and transmitters to a team frequency for emergency's, that frantic beeping marking the call being on that group channel. He instantly answered, not quite catching Falco's voice as he came on.

"what's going on?" an image of Falco's face in the hanger of the great Fox was hovering over his device, as well as two greyed out boxes marking Slippy and Chris being in the channel too.

"Look at the freaking news McCloud!" Falco's voice sounded almost panicked. He glanced up at Katt, who opened up her own phone and opened a news app, setting it to a hologram as well.

"-f our demands are not met within the next hour, I will start killing students, one at a time." Fox's mouth fell opened as he recognized the room a human woman stood in, her short black hair and ragged gear almost instantly marking her as an earth borne resistance fighter. She was violently gesturing a handgun at a human teenager that Fox instantly recognized.

"God damn the timing. Fuck. We gotta get Samantha out of there." Chris's voice spoke next, his grey block lighting up as he did so.

"I'm already working on it. they are holding the student body in two different areas, that classroom, and the gym. There's a landmaster in the gym that they've commandeered. I can handle the classroom hostages, but I can't take a tank down." Fox nodded, already looking around the apartment.

"Myself and Katt will take one of the AT7's and get over there. Work with local police to take the tank out if you can handle the hostages in the classroom." His voice almost instantly spoke again.

"Roger that. Consider it done." His grey box disappeared after he spoke, Fox's attention diverting to the other box.

"Falco, spin up your Arwing, just in case. Slippy, get in touch with the chief of police and inform him of what's going on, and that we will be providing assistance to take out that tank." Falco nodded before disconnecting, followed by slippy voicing his acknowledgement and the channel closing. He was still stuffing his phone in his pocket when Katt held his small blaster carbine out to him. He smirked and accepted the weapon, seeing that she had already gotten the AT7, slinging the large tube like launcher over her shoulder. "You sure you know how to use that thing?" she smirked and nodded.

"Yeah, I've had my fair share of scraps! Besides, Chris showed me a few days ago. He seemed rather insistent on everyone knowing how to use these." She smirked at him, causing him to roll his eyes. "Miyu! Stay. Here. Period. Okay?" the smaller feline nodded to Katt before fox lead the way through the door and out to his SUV. Fox was very glad no one was out side, given the sight of Katt with the rocket launcher would have likely scared the locals. It didn't take him long to reach the school, cop cars already swarming the area, as well as news reporters. He rammed his hand on the horn as he approached, most of the crowd moving out of the way of his SUV until he reached the holographic police line, one of the cops already approaching. Fox pulled his ID out as the cop approached his window, weapon cautiously drawn, but not raised.

"Fox McCloud. Here to help. Your chief should already know I'm coming." The canine glanced at the ID being presented to him, his eyes bouncing between the orange vulpine in the picture and the one in the front seat of the vehicle.

"Alright, command center is in that truck here. They should be attempting contact now." Fox nodded, driving past the cop as he stepped away, the reporters trying to surge after the SUV, several other cops helping stop them. As soon as Fox was close enough to the command truck, he stopped his SUV and climbed out, keeping his carbine non-chalantly balanced in his left hand. Katt kept the rocket launcher slung, her dual thigh holsters bouncing loosely as she followed Fox into the truck. There was dead silence in there as a familiar female voice spoke from a speaker.

 _"I understand that support will take some time! But if you will not show any support for our cause, in twenty minutes, you'll have a new corpse for the morgue!"_ the line cut off, the group looking around in fear.

"God, she is insane!" Fox cleared his throat after one of the techs spoke, gaining the attention of several of the techs in the trailer and the police chief, who was still holding the phone he had used to speak with the hostage takers. The aging canine almost had a look of relief on his face.

"Thank god! We are not equipped to deal with this shit! These guys are equipped like a military force, even have man portable anti-air. Locked onto a news chopper until it bugged out." Fox nodded, stepping further into the truck as he spoke.

"They also have repurposed a landmaster that was stored here from the Lylat insurrection. and they are holding the hostages in two locations." Fox had moved to the digital blueprints of the building that the cops had up on one wall, pointing at the Gym and the classroom. "I'm guessing they are a small force, maybe twenty or so. At least five in the classroom, five or so watching the perimeter from the roof and manning the anti-air, three or four roaming the halls to hunt down the students, and the rest in the gym with heavy weapons to watch the hostages there. What are they demanding?" the police chief sighed, scrolling the screen over. It was now displaying a Cornerian destroyer.

"This. They want a fully equipped cruiser rigged for an orbital bombardment. And how do you have knowledge on their operation, you just got here!?" Fox grimaced, letting his mind rush to find a good explanation without jeopardizing their mission.

"one of my team is a student here. He was a child soldier on earth, never got proper schooling, so he's getting some now. and he is the most paranoid person I have ever met, so, duh, he's armed and ready to fight." The cop shrugged and flicked the map back on.

"Alright, so what are you thinking?" Fox jerked his thumb behind him to Katt, who was casually standing on the entrance ramp still.

"We got a rocket launcher, we take a multi-team assault on the gym, while we provide air cover. Human missile systems may be a threat to rotor and fixed wing civilian aircraft, but a military grade space fighter laughs at it. Falco should be here shortly, he's supposed to call me up when he does. I'll leave you to your teams, my main goal will be hitting that tank."

"What about the hostages in the class room?" Fox smirked as his phone went off again, Falco's tone coming through.

"We leave it to Chris. He can handle it on his own. Trust me on that one."

* * *

I took a deep breath as I stopped outside the door to the class room, balancing the civilian M4 in my hands. It was a fairly light weapon, with a four grip, no built in iron sights, and a holographic sight mounted on top. I knew it wasn't a bad weapon, and by the weight, I would have guessed the magazine was fairly close to full, if not totally full. The building suddenly shook as a high pitched whine ripped past, the sound of a high performance ion engine in atmosphere. There was a sharp crack as I assumed a missile launcher was fired at it, a curse slipping out of my mouth. I was about to try and peak into the room when I heard a familiar voice through the wall, only slightly muffled.

 _"Damn them! Somebody kill that god damned Starfighter! Greg, get the camera ready! They just shortened their time table."_ I instantly acted, kicking the door near it's handle, the light wood breaking around the handle mechanism. As the door swung open, I leaned out enough to survey the room, instantly spotting a resistance fighter moving to aim toward the door and fired a controlled pair, not watching the results as I threw myself across the door. Multiple rifles went off, tearing through the thin walls and peppering me with dust as they continued on their murderous path. When the fire stopped, I instantly was on my feet and stepping into the room. All of the soldiers were reloading, save Garrick, who had her M9 out, aiming the small pistol toward the door. I dived the second I saw her aiming, firing on the soldiers trying to reload. She had started firing too, her first shot hitting the wall beside me, the second catching the side of my gut and ripping through. I gasped, my weapon falling from my hands as I hit the ground, rolling behind the teachers desk by luck alone.

"Go kill him! Now!" Garrick's livid voice was clear as day as I fought the pain in my side, ignoring the bleeding wound for now. I quickly grabbed the small handgun from it's holster again, listening carefully as I heard the soldier stepping toward the desk. _To my left. Just a little closer….._ I suddenly twisted out and fired off four rounds as fast as I safely could, the small pistol having a surprisingly large amount of recoil. One of the rounds found it's mark in the man's neck, my eye's getting a split second view of the room before I ducked back, a pair of pistol rounds ripping into the thick hard wood of the desk. There were four corpses, or soon to be corpses, already on the floor from my desperate shots, leaving just Garrick standing. She had grabbed Samantha and was holding her by the neck, aiming the hand gun in her hand toward me. There were a dozen or so students still in the corner of the room, cowering in fear.

"Garr- I mean, jess, I'm going to give you one chance. Surrender now, and I promise I will not harm you. For old times sake." I heard her laugh, two more gun shots ringing out, tearing a chunk out of the desk.

"And why the fuck would I do that?! What, scared I'm gonna hurt your precious _girl_?" I growled and snapped to my feet, ignoring the shaft of pain it caused as I leveled the small handgun on her. she laughed at the sight, still clutching Samantha. My vision was starting to swim slightly, not really able to fully focus on her.

"Jess, plea-please. You have hurt enough people." She laughed again, shaking her head.

"Oh, begging me now? Pain too much for you little boy? Or is that shitty peashooter of yours too inaccurate to hit me!?" I groaned, trying to think fast. She was right. Both about the pain and the weapon. It had too short of a barrel to be accurate, and across the classroom from each other was far enough that hitting her chest would be a difficult task, let alone her head without hitting Samantha. Samantha seemed to be frozen where she was, her eyes sealed tight shut. She was clearly absolutely terrified. "So why don't you put your gun down? You have no business stopping our work here! This is about saving lives Chris!" I glared at her, moving to take a step forward, only to freeze as she harshly jammed the pistol against Samantha's head. "Don't move or I blow her god damned brains out!"

"How can you be saving lives by threatening innocents?" she rolled her eyes, chuckling.

"This again huh? You never get it, do you? To busy holding your 'moral high ground' to do what's necessary! So what if I have to kill a few kids? If it means giving us an edge over those tyrannical bastards on earth, so we can finally put a stop to them, then what we have to do shouldn't matter!" I growled, my finger tensing on the trigger.

"Jess! What's the goddamned point to fighting tyranny if you lose your own values along the way! The whole reason we started fighting was to protect people!" she rolled her eyes about to speak when a gunshot ripped through the room.

* * *

Fox's eyes bounced all around him, looking for any kind of sign that an enemy was watching them. Mean while, Katt was picking the lock on a back door into the school's maintenance area connected to it's gym. They had agreed that it would give them the best bet of getting in, the old style key lock being the one real barrier between them and the Gym itself. The police teams were already in position, and had reported to them that the tank was facing the room at large, it's rear toward the maintenance room wall. So Fox, and Katt were more than likely have a clear shot at it's rear. Most tanks were weak in the rear, especially Cornerian ones, given they needed a way to vent heat buildup from firing. So the rear armor was near non-existent on a landmaster, so that a cooling unit could get the air it needed to function. Katt tapped his side as she finished, gently and quietly trying to open the door. The door seemed to have other plans, squeaking open. there was a pair of human soldiers in the room, neither getting the chance to shoot as Katt and Fox rushed in, green and blue plasma bolts ripping away from their weapons. Fox easily fired a pair of blue bolts from his carbine, both burying into a soldiers chest, Katt firing a flurry of green bolts from her dual pistols at the second, several missing. Fox glared at her, and at the holes burned into the wall by her careless shooting.

"What?" Fox rolled his eyes and continued, hoping no one heard those shots. They reached the door into the gym and Katt prepped the launcher, giving Fox a nod. He violently kicked the door open, the large bar button to release it's mechanism helping greatly with the movement. As soon as the door was open, he danced out of the way, clearing Katt's line of fire. There was an incredible wompf from the weapon as the rocket launched, faster than the speed of sound. It was followed near instantly by an explosion, Fox ducking through the door to see the Tank engulfed in flames. Several other doors had been blown in, Cornerians outfitted from head to toe with black tactical gear flooding in. the humans seemed to understand that they were out matched, only one even firing his weapon. One of the Swat members was hit, but not before himself and several others had managed to fire precise bolts into the chest of the soldier. The others all set their weapons on the floor, holding their hands up. While the cops secured the scene, Katt trying to console and control the crowd of students and staff, Fox took off into the building, racing for the classroom to help Chris. A pair of humans were in the corridors as he veered around a corner, both of them rushing toward the gym in a similar rush to Fox's. Fox's insane reflex's saved him, firing off a trio of bolts into their chests before running on to the classroom. He heard several bangs as he ran, arriving a minute or so after everything had gone quiet. He slid to a stop in the room realizing the carnage in that had happened in the room. Chris was on the floor, bleeding, Callie trying to keep pressure on the wound. Their were five bodies around him, two of which were still moving, clutching at bleeding wounds. The female from the broadcast was one of them, clutching at her throat.

"This is McCloud, I need medics on site in classroom J-one-one-eight, five hostiles down, one casualty." Fox was depressing the button on the police radio he was carrying as he spoke, slipping over to Chris as he noticed the other students in the room. A quick visual look told him that none had been harmed, Samantha lying on the floor a few feet away. he instantly diverted, checking her for wounds first. She was utterly terrified, shaking uncontrollably, but seemed fine as his radio cracked back to life.

"Medical personnel are en-route. The building is secure."

* * *

Callie shook as she made her way through the halls, tightly gripping the hand gun in both of her hands. She knew there was no way Chris could handle this on his own. As much as she wanted to just hide, she told the other girls to hide and started moving toward the class room. She suddenly heard a pair of gun shots and froze, a loud thunder of shots following. It went silent for only a couple of seconds before she heard more shots, followed by silence again. She started walking again, albeit, at a much faster pace. There was another burst of shots, causing her to hesitate. Another pair of shots galvanized her into action, running as fast as she could toward the classroom. She heard two more shots again as she rounded the corner to the hall way her class room was in, sliding to a stop when she saw the carnage that had been the class room's wall. It was shredded, pieces of dry wall and dust covering the hall. She could hear voices pouring from the room, her adrenaline preventing her from really knowing what was said. She stepped into the room, instantly seeing Chris pointing his weapon at a female soldier, who had Samantha clutched tightly into her arms, a hand gun to her head. _Oh god! What do I do? I cant shoot at my friend!?_ Her body seemed to act for her, pointing her gun at the wall and squeezing the trigger. Even though she was ready for the tremendous bang that erupted from the weapon, she hadn't expected how much it would hurt her ears, or how much the weapon was going to jump in her hands, completely dropping the weapon in fright. Her eye's followed the weapon as it fell, Callie expecting it to clatter to the floor. There were several more bangs, causing Callie to hit the floor, covering her ears. She felt more than heard a thump. Opening her eyes to see Chris and the woman grappling on the floor, her handgun feet away. his was still clutched tightly in his hand, trying to force the small weapon into his opponents face. Samantha had been tossed aside, lying on the ground in a heap. Callie was instantly on her feet, running over to her side. She was sobbing on the ground, clearly utterly terrified.

"Sammy! Are you okay? You didn't get shot did you?" her voice was rushed and panicked as she searched Samantha for any signs of blood, only to freeze as a gun shot broke out again. The female soldier was lying on the ground, blood stemming from her throat. Chris was standing above her, aiming the smoking pistol at her, he had a fresh graze on his arm, looking almost like a cut as blood seeped from it. he seemed to sway there for a second before his hand let go of the pistol, followed by him slumping to the floor. Callie was instantly panicking, trying to keep pressure on his bleeding side with no idea how to actually help. She kept trying to speak to Chris, but he wasn't responding, everything quickly becoming no more than a blur, until she was being pulled away from him, a Canine paramedic pressing a bandage onto his wound as a couple of others prepared a gurney. She looked behind her to see a familiar orange vulpine, his eyes staying on Chris as they loaded him on the gurney, a look of concern on his face. She realized that she was the only student in the room, instantly talking.

"Wh-Where is Sammy!?" the Vulpine glanced at her, beckoning for her to follow, quickly finding herself outside, where a host of emergency vehicles were, as well as a massive Starfighter, landed out on the sports field. There was a virtual sea of students, several being wrapped in blankets, a lot shakily making phone calls to home. Sitting on one of the ambulances, was Sammy, wrapped in a blanket. She instantly ran over, moving to hug her when she shied away, staring at Callie's blood covered hands.

"Callie! Are you…." Callie instantly cut her off, her eyes dropping to her hands for a second.

"N-No. i-I'm okay. It's Chris's blood." She found herself shivering, oddly feeling frigid. Samantha nodded to her before wrapping her arms around her friend, the blanket she was wrapped in swathing both of them.


	8. Chapter 8

I groaned as my eyes slowly opened, a faint rhythmic beep echoing in my ear. I panicked for a second, remembering the attack on the school, only to remember what had transpired. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get Samantha's terrified face out of my mind. It had been a long time since I had seen someone that scared, reminding me of a time I would've much rathered to forget. I started looking around the room, using the act of studying my environment to distract myself. The room I was in was a typical hospital room, a very light tan shade to the walls with a painting on one wall, a large window out into the suburbs around it off to my right, a single large door on the left. It was still bright outside, and I found myself startling again when Fox's voice rang out.

"Done napping now?" I glared at him, feeling absolutely naked in a patients gown, not wanting to sit up because of it.

"I don't see you getting shot, do i?" Fox smirked from where he was sitting in the corner of the room, out of the way of everything.

"True, true, but then again, you don't see me charging headlong into a room full of terrorists, do you?" I shrugged, my attention focusing on the window. I was starting to feel very jittery, wanting to be back in my regular clothes and at least a sidearm with me.

"My cover's blown now, isn't it?" I heard Fox sigh, not having to look at him to know he had gotten up.

"Not entirely. Yeah, they know you have a job and that it aint flipping burgers. They have a general idea of what you used to do, but no real details. They know you're Star Fox, but they think you are just getting the education you missed out on." I nodded, still not looking at him.

"So no idea what I'm really doing there?" just after I spoke, I heard the door open and close, turning bright red as I recognized the female canine that had just walked in, Miyu following her as she mouthed something to Fox, looking like 'I couldn't stop her'.

"Nope. Not at all. Anyway, see ya later kid, hey Miyu, and Callie, right?" Callie nodded as Fox held his hand out to her. She politely shook it, Fox looking back at me before he left, silently mouthing _good luck_ back to me. Callie stepped up to the bed, a bright gleaming smile on her face.

"It's nice to see you awake! I honestly thought you might die!" I rolled my eyes looking away in a vain attempt to hide how uncomfortable I was. Having a bouncy civilian like Callie around was of no help what-so ever.

"it wasn't that bad of a wound. Just didn't get a chance to control it." Miyu was rolling her eyes as she moved over into my vision, a smirk on her face.

"Alright tough guy, you can drop the act. You needed over a liter of blood after that nice little stunt you pulled. You're just lucky the bullet missed everything vital." I rolled my eye's at her as she lightly tapped my nose with a finger, taking on a sing songy voice.

"Cut the crap miyu, I've been in the middle of a twenty millimeter cannon burst before. A little rinky-dink nine mill wont kill me." Callie butted in before Miyu could respond, a shocked expression on her face.

"So you really are a child soldier then!?" I nodded to her, her expression softening. "Oh, that's so terrible!" I merely shrugged, not really caring.

"Could be worse. I could be in a mass grave right now." Miyu managed to speak first, rolling her eyes yet again.

"True as that may be, you really should work on your conversational etiquette." Callie spoke up, myself remaining silent as her attention focused on Miyu.

"So wait, how did you guys meet if he is just now going to school?" Miyu shrugged at her, inspecting her claw for some reason.

"Just a week ago, actually. He and Katt do know each other. Worked a few jobs." I stared wide eyed at her, shocked.

"So if you two meeting in the school was a lie, what else is?" I groaned, knowing this conversation was not going to end well.

"Not all that much actually. He really didn't want people to know what he was, just wanted to fit in, as terrible at that as he is. I wasn't lying about him talking about Sammy all the time though." I instantly butted in, glaring at Miyu.

"And who gave you permission to go blabbing!?" she smirked at me, her attention returning to Callie.

"oh hush you! It's about time you start talking to them! Think of it as a learning experience you idiot!" Callie was chuckling, a smile on her face.

"Wow, you two don't even need to act to seem like friends. I'd actually go as far as saying you are." Miyu just grinned, myself just covering my face for a second.

"Can we just move on, I really don't want to talk about me. At all. Callie, are you doing okay?" she gave me a shocked expression, myself continuing on my own. "I mean, what you did back there, it was a pretty brave thing. I'm livid that you didn't do what I said, but then again, I'm alive right now because of it. so thanks and again, are you okay?" she shrugged, her smile faltering. She was clearly affected by what had happened, I myself having been absolutely terrified in my first fight.

"I-I'm okay. I mean, I don't know. All of this….. it's a shock. Sammy….. Sammy hasn't spoken at all, after yesterday. She made sure I was alright and has been silent since. She barely eats. It's…. really scary, actually." She seemed to be panicking, and tears were starting to leak from her eyes, her tail tucked between her legs. I was instantly panicking myself, not really sure what to do.

"Callie, um….." I froze, not really knowing what to say. "Callie, do you think she would answer a vid call?" Miyu raised an eyebrow at me, clearly a little confused. Callie had a spark of hope in her eyes as I continued. "I mean, I've been through a lot of sh—stuff. Maybe I can help her a little." Miyu smirked for a second before suddenly leaving. Callie moved over to beside the bed and pulled her phone out, about to call her friend when something suddenly hit me. "Wait, you said 'yesterday'?" She nodded, calling her friend and speaking while it rang.

"Well, you were out for a while. I've been coming to check on you. Just happened to catch you awake I guess." I nodded and my attention turned to the phone's screen.

* * *

 _"Samantha! Run!" Samantha's eyes were wide in fear, her heart hammering. Her father was only a few dozen feet behind her. even at this distance, she could see the dark stain forming on his jeans, the crimson liquid running freely over his hands as he clutched the wound._

 _"Daddy!" the gunfire around her was deafening, every boom chilling her to the bone. A pair of ragtag looking soldiers came off a side street aiming their rifles at her father. He couldn't see them, his focus being on his leg and her. "Daddy! Look out!" he looked up at her, just before the two soldiers opened fire, several rapid cracks ripping at her ear drums. Blood ripped away from her fathers chest from multiple points, his eyes going wide. She screamed, going to run forward when someone grabbed her arms. A pair of silvery lances ripped away from beside her, one of the rebels dropping as the two bolts ripped into him. One of the white armored soldiers of the UEG stepping into her field of vision, weapon raised. The other ragtag soldier was snapping his weapon up as the peacekeeper fired first. The plasma bolt ripped into the soldiers shoulder as he started firing. Small chunks of concrete blasted off the ground, a small shiny fragment catching the day's dying light as it shot toward her, fast enough that she couldn't register what was happening before it was ripping into her shoulder, shrieking from the excruciating pain. Her hand shot to her shoulder, an almost unfeelable piece of metal sticking out of the wound, that the second her hand touched it, sent an excruciating shock of pain through her._

* * *

Samantha groaned as her phone played out a song, announcing a call from Callie. She was still in her bed, not wanting to move, and not even bothering to change out of her clothes from the previous day. She groaned as she looked at the screen, realizing that it was a video call as she answered it. the phone popped up an image of Callie, the all too familiar walls of a hospital room behind her, as well as the monitors that were usually in hospital rooms.

"Hey Sammy! Look who's awake!" the phone suddenly jerked over to the bed beside her, where Chris was, wearing a hospital gown and a bandage on his fore arm. She could see clearly the handful of small pricks of red on his face from the wall's debris. She was disgusted by the sight of him, nearly ending the call right there.

"Callie, why the fuck did you think I would want to see him right now!" the camera shifted back to her, where she had a panicked expression on her face.

"Sammy! He saved your life! I thought you might want to, I don't know, thank him!?" she looked off screen, just before the camera view got shifted, back to Chris, who's expression couldn't be called anything but serious.

"Sammy, are you okay? i…. didn't hurt you, did i?" she was stunned for a second, having not expected the first thing for him to say to be anything along those lines. "I mean, I kinda threw you over those desks pretty hard. I didn't want to hurt you I just needed to get you away from Garrick." She had to admit, it had hurt, tumbling over the desks, leaving her with several bruises. But Callie was right, he had been trying to save her. her eyes closed and she shook her head, trying to shake the memories of a gun being jammed against her head away.

"I….. yeah, I got a few bruises but…. Wait, Garrick!? You knew that women?!" he went wide eyed, panicking, stumbling over his own words as he spoke.

"Well, uh, yeah, I did, but no! I haven't spoken to her recently! I used to work with her, on earth! i… fucking eh, I don't want to say this but… I was a resistance fighter….. we both were until she… she umm…." Sammy cut him off, anger boiling under her skin. _He was one of them! Those assholes that killed dad, caused all of this hell!_

"So…. You were one of them huh?" he instantly spoke, the shift in her tone clearly not going unnoticed.

"Well yeah! we tried to protect people! The UEG just slaughtered anyone that stood against them, peacefully or otherwise! When Garrick wanted to target civilians, I went against her!"

"you….. you are just a murderer!" he had a shocked expression on his face, almost pained in a way.

"Sammy…." She instantly cut him off.

"Your resistance is the reason I don't have my father anymore! Why my brother has become a fucking soldier in the UEG! Why my mother cries herself to sleep every night! All of us! humanity! More of us live in the Lylat system now than our own homeworld!" Callie's voice cut her off before she could continue, feeling her anger boiling under her skin.

"Sammy! He i-isn't!" she heard the hesitation in her voice as the camera shifted back to her.

"Really? You said yourself he killed someone right in front of you, after torturing him!" the camera went blurry for a second, and she heard a startled shout just before it refocused on Chris

"If I hadn't done what I did, they would have killed a lot of innocent people. They had a tank, they were ready for a fight. If SWAT had gone in that early without knowledge of that tank, or where they were keeping people, they would have needed four times the amount of people! And you would be dead! And if he had warned them…. If they…" her anger seemed to crack apart as she realized that he was crying. Something about his expression was raw, different. Pained. Nothing like she had ever seen in him. "Miles….. he…. He was one of my friends. We fought together, we bled together. In the end….. he…. i…" she ended the call, feeling her own tears leaking out. _Why was he crying? After how composed he was in that room, from what Callie had told her, how composed he had been the whole time?_ She rolled over on her bed, trying fruitlessly to wipe her tears away. _why am I bothered so much by this!? He's a monster! The same kind of person that killed your father!_ She clutched the sides of her head as her mind continued to struggle with itself. _But, he saved your life. And tried to once. He cant be a monster, can he?_ She wasn't really sure how long it had been, but she suddenly decided to grab her phone, finding Callie's contact and video calling it, just hoping she was still with him.

* * *

Callie eyes bounced between her phone in Chris's hand and his face, both absolutely shocked at the sudden anger Sammy had displayed, and the sudden anguished state Chris was now in. she slowly grabbed the phone from his hands, sliding it away in one of her pockets without taking her eyes off him. She glanced over as the door opened, letting Katt, Miyu, and Fox walk in. it still sometimes shocked her that she knew Fox McCloud now, not even realizing how big a celebrity he really was either. all three of them seemed to freeze, Miyu with a curious expression on her face. The other two were totally shocked, completely un-moving. Miyu was the first to move, rushing forward to hug him, hesitating right before she did.

"Chris…. Are you alright?" he shoved her off of him, shaking his head. She lingered by the bed, leaning on the edge of it, and still clearly concerned. Her expression seemed almost pained. Callie gently rested a hand on one of his, only for him to instantly shy away. she pulled her hand away when Fox's voice drew her attention.

"Um, i….uh….. we'll come back.., come on Katt." Fox quickly grabbed Katt, the feline fighting back for a second before he dragged her from the room.

"You two should go too." He was glaring at the wall, almost like he wanted to destroy it right then and there.

"And you, tough guy, better have another thought coming! I'm not leaving. Not right now. you'd say we're friends right?" He looked at her, a small spark of pain flashing through his eyes. He closed his eyes for several seconds before he nodded, almost so subtly that it was almost non-existent. "Then I'm not leaving. And I think callie here is too kind spirited to leave either." he didn't look at either of them, remaining absolutely silent. Suddenly, Callie's phone went off, causing her to pull it back out. A picture of Callie and Sammy was on the screen, laughing at a joke one of their friends had just said. She answered before she realized that it was a video call. Her friend still looked like a mess, still in bed, as she had been when Callie had called her earlier.

"Hey Sammy. You okay?" Miyu went silent, her eyebrows raised. Chris looked at Callie's phone, confused.

"i…. Callie, is Chris gonna be okay?" Callie smiled glancing at Chris.

"Well… Tough guy… is gonna be fine. After his stupid running head long into bullets, he'll be fine. Wanna see him?" she sighed on the screen, closing her eyes for a second.

"No. not now….. i…. just no." he nodded to Callie, gesturing at her to leave. Callie simply smiled, shaking her head to Chris.

"Well, I'm sure it helps him to know you forgive him." Sammy instantly glared at the screen, Callie shriveling up at it.

"I do not forgive him! i… just want to call a…. truce if you will. He saved me. Guess it's only fair." Callie grinned, unable to contain it.

"Close enough, now quit being moody and say hi!" she heard Sammy groan, but had already turned the phone toward him.

"Fine. Hi. Get well. So I can kick your ass. You got that?" Callie was about to yell at her friend when Chris surprisingly smiled.

"Alright. I'll hold you too that." Callie turned the phone back to herself smiling.

"Okay. Well, I'm going to head home. Bye Sammy!" Samantha waved on the screen as Callie ended the call, waving at the two in the room as she left, smiling.

* * *

Fox groaned as he sat down in one of the chairs, feeling absurdly tired after all that had happened. Katt dropped into the seat beside him, smirking.

"no moaning and groaning. You aren't that old yet." He rolled his eyes, leaning back against the wall. He wanted nothing more than to sleep right now.

"Yeah? tell that to the asshole in that room stealing my sleep. Think he's gonna be okay? Never seen the kid crying like that before." He opened his eyes as he spoke so he could look at Katt, the black feline shrugging.

"Well, he isn't alone. Seems both Miyu and that Callie have taken a liking to him. Some how." Fox grunted, smirking himself. His smile faded as his thoughts drifted back to the issue at hand, totally unsure as to what to do.

"Should we tell him?" Katt shrugged, looking away. a passing doctor forced her to be silent, her voice quiet when he finally got far enough to safely speak.

"I don't know. You know him better. Personally, I don't think he needs to know that one of the crazy ass human terrorists got away. ever get his name?" Fox nodded, his mind flicking back to the dossier he had been sent. The CDF had sent what information they had back to earth, asking about the members of the group for information, and to give names to the dead.

"Yeah. Arron Diaz. Cybernetic right leg, Hispanic. Not really sure what that means but knows his way around a battlefield. Has experience in both Battle Mechs and MICS systems. They aren't even sure how he slipped away, just that he was there." Katt nodded, seeming lost in thought for a few seconds.

"Well, think you are going to go after him?" Fox shook his head, having spent all night at the police department, trying to help the search for the getaway terrorist.

"No, not likely. We still have a mission. And we still don't know why An- sorry, Mister A, wants Samantha. We gotta figure that out, and I know a certain feline with some shady connections?" Katt groaned, having tried to leave her more colorful past behind already.

"You know I don't talk to them anymore right? Besides, who would watch Miyu then? Her parents are still on that system survey." Fox raised an eyebrow at her, earning himself a defeated slump of her shoulders. "So I guess you will. Fine, but if I hear anything happens to her, you are so fucking dead." Fox grinned, gently bumping her elbow.

"Oh you know me! She'll be fine! Don't worry about it! by the way, you should also take Falco with you." She groaned again, dropping her head into her hands.

"Great. The moronic bachelor is watching my friends daughter, and I have to babysit bird boy! I never should have accepted helping you guys." Fox laughed as he stood, stretching.

"Oh, you love us! and don't forget the money either." she rolled her eyes at him before standing herself, waving goodbye as she marched off down the hallway. Fox returned the gesture before moving back toward the hospital room, seeing Callie stepping out of there with a smile.


	9. Chapter 9

Samantha sighed as she heard someone knocking on the door, setting her useless homework down. School had been canceled for the past week, so that the police could investigate and the school could begin cleaning up the area, and was likely going to remain closed for at least another week. So, although there was almost no point to it, she was stuck doing her homework that was not even going to be graded, just trying to find things to do. Her mother didn't want her leaving their apartment, given she had been kidnapped once and nearly killed during the school attack. It scared her to think that two things like that could have happened in such short order, having always believed that Corneria was a safe place to be. A second knock caused her to realize she had stopped on her way to the door. She quickly shook herself free of her thoughts, peeking through the peep hole and smiling. Callie was on the other side, a male beagle looking canine with her. Samantha quickly unlatched the door and opened it, already speaking.

"Callie! Hey, who's this?" Callie seemed to shrivel up for a second, her voice hurried and quiet.

"Hey, uh, this is Jason. I told you about him?" Samantha nodded, remembering that they had gone on a date a few weeks ago, Callie not speaking about him since.

"Oh, nice to meet you. So what brings you two by?" Callie had a smile that seemed to explode over her face.

"I thought I'd tell you that Chris was released from the hospital last night. I just found out, and me and Jason were on our way over to say hi. Want to come?" Samantha's first thought was a violent no. but before she could speak, she stopped herself. _Give him a chance. You know what he used to be, but that isn't what he is now._ she sighed, stepping back from the door.

"Alright, I'll come. Just don't expect me to stay long." Callie's smile remained as bright as ever, with the exception of a small wavier. She had seemed a little off since what had happened at the school. Sammy really wanted to ask her what was up, but she feared that Callie wouldn't talk to her. she didn't even know why she was afraid of that. It didn't take Sammy long to find her shoes, following Callie out and into the street. She glanced back at her apartment building and grunted, realizing that Chris's apartment could see her's. her room was on the second floor, her bedroom being the one of the two with a window, her mothers being between it and the hallway. It didn't take them long to walk past the park between the buildings, going all the way around the building to the entrance. His apartment was up on the fifth floor, out of six. A quick elevator ride and they were up there, it not being long before they were in front of his door. All three of them froze as they heard voices through the door.

"Ow, quit poking at it! shesh! It may not hurt that bad, but you poking it doesn't help!" they heard someone cry out again, Callie giggling. "Miyu! Cut it out!" they heard someone laugh before a female voice spoke, one Sammy did not recognize.

"Well, maybe I would stop if you hadn't called me ugly the other day!" both Callie and Sammy winced, Jason chuckling to himself.

"I didn't call you ugly, what are yo-" his voice cut out as he let out another cry. "Ow, the hell!?"

"Oh, quit lying you! You know you did!"

"What are you talki- ahh- ow, cut that out already!" Sammy couldn't help but giggle as it continued, very interested as to what was going.

"The other day! Before you left for school, you said I was nothing special! Or did you conveniently forget that!?" they heard another shriek, Jason wincing.

"The hell!? I told you, seeing a gal in their underwear is nothing special. Ow! I'm gonna kill you!" Jason slowly backed away, quietly excusing himself, mouthing to Callie that he would catch her later.

"Oh no, nice try tough guy! After I asked if seeing me half naked made you horny, and you said, I quote, 'you're nothing special'." She heard him groan, while she stared at the door in bewilderment.

"That's it! I'm seeing what the hell is going on in there!" Callie moved to stop her, but too late, as Sammy had already turned the door nob and thrown the door open. they were met with the whine of a plasma weapon charging and the racking of a handgun, Fox and Chris both darting to the entry hall. Where Fox stayed standing, weapon half raised, Chris was at a crouch, the back of his left hand braced on the wall to steady his aim, both hands on his handgun. Both of them instantly pointed their weapons in safe directions, safeties clicking on. Samantha was staring at the two weapons, particularly Chris's, in total fear. Chris seemed to notice, a puzzled expression on his face until a female lynx stepped between, smacking Chris upside the head.

"Holster your pistols cowboys! I know yall are happy to see them, but doubt Callie and her friend are any kind of threat." Fox glared at her, his blaster being slipped into a holster, Chris glancing at Samantha before hiding his weapon behind his back.

"Miyu, enough with the sex jokes. Dipshit here wont even catch on to them. Uh good to see you two again, sorry about the welcome. Little on edge." She shrugged, hearing a thud as chris stood, looking like he tossed something away.

"So what are you doing here Samantha?" she just now realized that he was shirtless, having been too focused on the gun in Chris's hand to notice until now. his midsection and fore arm were covered in bandages.

"I heard you got out of the hospital, and Callie wanted to see how you were so…." She trailed off, Miyu letting her eyebrows bounce as she elbowed chris's side, right where the injury was. He shrieked again, a sound that was totally wrong to hear from him.

"I'll go finish lunch. Good to see you again Callie!" she waved cheerily to Callie, who returned it.

"Well, I'm fine, see? Just clipped. Had worse before. Anything else?" Fox was in the middle of face palming himself, shaking his head. He quickly turned and walked into the main living room, muttering something only his own ears likely heard.

"So Miyu said something about food, mind if we stay a bit? I haven't eaten yet, you game Samantha?" she shrugged, Callie padding her way past Chris, who was now leaning on the wall, arms crossed.

"You really don't like weapons, do you?" his voice was very quiet, just loud enough for her to hear him actually. she shook her head, trying to keep the images that kept trying to come up out of her mind.

"No. I don't. they're evil, and nothing good ever comes from them. No one should be allowed to have weapons." He sighed, rolling so that his back was against the wall.

"Weapons are not inherently good or evil. They're just tools. They can be used to take lives, or save them. To protect or destroy. Remember that." With that, he popped off the wall, stepping into the living room, she watched for a second, before following, dropping into a chair at the table, right beside Callie, not that Callie noticed, she was too busy talking away with Miyu, Samantha not caring enough to really know what they were talking about. _Leave it to Callie to be instant friends with anyone and everyone._

"So, um, Samantha?" she glanced up at chris, who took a deep breath before he continued. "The thing with Ava… that really wasn't me. Falco decided to use one of the teams cloaking units to um…. Play some pranks. And uh…." Fox suddenly spoke up, clearly barely able to hold back a chuckle.

"He's been reprimanded for it. he wasn't supposed to have pulled a cloaking unit from the armory. Hell, if Chris here didn't personally own them, we wouldn't have so many fire arms here." He chuckled, almost to himself. "Crazy paranoid bastard."

"And how many firefights have we been in since getting here? Two already. Almost more often than the battles on earth happen!" Samantha went wide eyed, flashes of her kidnapping popping into her mind, some of them seeming almost not her own. As if she was looking down on herself from a balcony, in the warehouse she had been held in.

"you were there…. At the warehouse….." her voice silenced the group, even Callie and Miyu.

"Yeah. I told you, I saw some shady characters, so I tired to get you to leave. Then I followed you after you left. I saw them grab you, pulled out my vector and gave chase. I wasn't just gonna sit by and do nothing. That isn't me." Samantha noticed the way Fox smiled at Chris, almost like a proud father in a way. She could also easily tell how honest he was being, which at least brought her a small comfort. She couldn't help but shudder at the thought of what he was though. Before anything else could happen, Fox's wrist computer began alarming, Fox instantly pulling the device from his wrist and answering it.

"What's goi-….Wait, What!?... roger that, Chris, get your shit, be ready to prep the MICS." Chris instantly nodded, seeming to fly out his chair, snatching his handgun off the floor, hidden behind a small rubbish bin. He disappeared for a minute or so, returning wearing a combat vest loaded with ammunition pouches. He reached behind the desk and pulled a rifle out, slamming a magazine in and cycling it. Samantha was staring wide eyed at him, realizing how different he suddenly looked. the timid, easily panicked person seemed nothing but a memory to the firm and composed person before her. and that was infinitely more terrifying to her than any weapon ever could be.

* * *

I barely even twitched as Fox piloted the shuttle up and away from the space port, neither of us having even said a word to one another since leaving the apartment. Fox had called what had sounded like CDF command, requesting an immediate gate jump to Mecbeth, which if I heard the conversation correctly, had been granted.

"What's the op McCloud?" he didn't even glance beside him, as I spoke, too focused on flying.

"A terror group got a hold of a nuke, plans to use it on a civilian population center. Whoever they are, CDF tracked the nuke to a heavily fortified base on Mecbeth, so they have good funding. Airstrike isn't viable. So you get the fun job to secure a landing site for a CDF explosive handling unit." I merely nodded at his words, the silvery hull of the Great Fox Two looming before us. the original Great Fox had been lost a couple years before, destroyed in an assault of a powerful Aparoid hive. The new one had been commissioned by general Pepper himself, in light of their actions protecting not only the Lylat system from that hive, but the entire sector, including the Sol system and lylat's two sister systems. The new ship was nearly indistinguishable from it's previous design, but it's systems were updated and new, not jury rigged over nearly three decades of operation. She was one of the most advanced ships to be created to date now.

Nothing more was said between us, Fox focusing on flying into the cramped main hanger, located underneath the Great Fox's main cannon array. They had modified the main hanger floor a few months before, creating a vehicle bay beneath the fighter catapults large enough for the MICS to safely move around in, able to be raised up into the hanger to be deployed by a catapult for space operations. Although the MICS was not originally designed for operation in space, it's mobility boost system allowed it to maneuver, and it was incredible at making sudden lateral movements, something a fighter couldn't do. This made it ideal for assaulting a fixed turreted position, like a ship or station. Or the catapult could be used to deploy the MICS in atmosphere, safely launching it away even if the ship is moving. As soon as the small shuttle entered the hanger, Fox shut it down, a set of gravity based energy fields, tractor beams for short, maneuvered the ship back onto one of the rails, where a fighter used to reside. There were four catapults, for fighters, running along the ceiling. The two center docks had Falco and Fox's Arwings, the fourth dock across the hanger from them left empty. I didn't say a word, grabbing my rifle and heading to the side of the cabin, where the exit hatch was opening.

"Chris. Be sure to be equipped to deal with infantry and light armor, as well as structures." Fox's voice made me pause in the door frame.

"I'll be ready Fox." I didn't even look at him as I spoke or as I stepped off of the craft. I was already thinking on what weaponry to deploy with. _Will definitely want the AR-9. It's versatile enough to handle the defenses, maybe the GP-7 as a backup for anything too heavy for the assault rifle. Maybe put a D-4 and PNZ-15 in a weapons pod, if things get really hairy._ My thoughts were broken as I entered the cluttered vehicle bay. Between the single Landmaster in the bay, the massive weapons rack for MICS, and an entire area of the hanger reserved for the teams personal projects, cluttered with tools and parts for an almost finished project of mine, the bay was almost totally filled. I ignored all of that for now, moving over to the MICS. My Mechanized Infantry Combat System was an older model, developed shortly after the founding of the UEG in it's war against the UFE, or United Federation of Earth. As such, it was shorter and bulkier than it's modern brethren, it's control systems being primarily manual. Although it was outfitted with a rudimentary AI to assist in it's control, Modern MICS units used a mixture of manual and neural control, allowing for the user to have almost direct control over the craft's system, versus a partnership between a pilot and machine. I had always had trouble controlling the neural link, finding a liking for the manual controls of the older models. The older models were also shorter by nearly a third, and were very blocky constructions, originally relying on jet fuel to operate. The chest cavity housed the cockpit, the head being an adjustable camera array and no more. The head was attached to the top hatch, currently flipped forward on it's hinges. I easily climbed the ladder and dropped into the cockpit, landing first on the box like frame of the ejection system before dropping into the saddle, as it was known. It was a small lip that supported the pilots weight, kept slim so the user could still move their legs. I quickly set my legs into the control frames, a set of rings opened at the moment for the user to get in. at the base was a mobile pedal, a ring set around the ankle to hold the mechanism in place relative to the leg, a similar pair of rings on either side of the knee joint. I started booting the system up, the multiple screens arrayed to show tactical feeds and camera feeds.

"Pilot, engine activation successful. Sensor feeds coming online. Permission to close hatch?" the electronic voice of the AI system spoke almost as soon as I had started the power core, my MICS being modified with a high end fusion power plant. This power system took up far less space than the gas turbine system, allowing for several additions to the system, as well as more power to the systems already in place.

"Granted A-J. preform pre-combat checks, close the leg clamps." The rings closed around my legs, inflatable bladders expanding to conform to my musculature. The hatch above me sealed, making the only light in the cockpit being the green hued glow of the monitors.

"All systems nominal. Bringing monitors online." Camera feeds began to link in as I picked up the helmet on the dash, instantly slipping it on. It's Heads Up Display was also still booting up as the main screen displayed the view from the main camera. The helmet was motion linked to the cameras, letting the user turn the cameras with a turn of their head, the monitors built on a rail to follow the motion of the pilots head so that the forward camera stayed in his field of view. It automatically flicked through the different vision modes, automatically adjusting the focus. All of the readouts were popping up, including the several different kinds of sensor systems, from heart beat sensors to EM detectors. One of the other additions to my MICS was an enhanced sensor suite, adding several new surveillance and detection abilities to the craft. "Adjutant reports all systems ready to transfer to pilot control." I absently nodded, sliding my arms through the rings leading to the control toggles. As soon as my hands touched the contacts on the back of the grips, the cuffs expanded, the rings forcing my hands and legs into similar positions as the arms although the angles were wrong to keep the pilot seated in the saddle. From there, movement controls were the same as moving your own limbs, with the exception of the fingers, controlled by a set of triggers on the two hand contacts, one trigger per finger, four lining the handle and one on the end to be worked by the thumb, all lockable in the closed position so the pilot could retain the vehicle's grip and operate a pair of control panels on the controllers. These controlled extra functions, one even telling the vehicle to auto change the magazine on the current weapon system, making a complicated process easy.

"Alright A-J, after I do a systems check, I need you to take over. One AR-nine, standard combat load, high explosive-armor-piercing, one GP-seven as secondary, half load. I also want a PNZ-fifteen and D-four loaded in a transmission pod, full loads for both. Could be a long fight A-J" I quickly tested the arms and legs, taking a couple of steps forward and moving the arms to test them.

"Roger. Adjutant will finish preparations and notify pilot when complete." I didn't acknowledge the voice, releasing the contacts and sliding my arms free of the controls, flicking through all of the systems myself. The comms gear lit up as Fox's voice suddenly rang through the cabin.

"You ready to go down there? Got ten minutes before we deploy, already sending you surveillance footage." I flicked the switch to activate the comms, speaking as soon as I did.

"A-J is getting munitions ready now. I'll be ready. Out." I closed the commline, not knowing if he responded.

"All munitions ready. Returning control to pilot." I slipped my hands back into the controls, marching the mech to the cargo elevator, which began to raise as soon as I stepped onto it. the four main screens showed the forward, left, right and rear camera views, giving me a surprisingly good view of the environment. As soon as the elevator finished, I stepped off and placed the feet of the MICS into the clamps of it's catapult, a twenty-five millimeter assault rifle in hand.

"A-J, notify Great Fox that we are ready to deploy, prepare for drop." The bay door opened, flame spilling into the bay. They were in the upper reaches of the atmosphere, and although Mecbeth had a thinner than average atmosphere, the speed the great Fox was more than likely moving at was causing the air to ignite from friction alone, flame licking at the shields of the ship. "A-J, are the…." The mechanical voice cutting me off.

"Adjutant reports shield system fully operational. Recommend pilot let automated system designation Adjutant handle drop sequence." I rolled my eyes, crouching slightly and leaning forward, the weapon at a low ready.

"Adjutant, Pilot with handle the drop sequence, operate systems only on my mark." The system didn't respond, the commline popping open again.

"Alright Buddy, out and at em!" even with the inertial compensation, I was slammed back in the compartment, as the catapult rail shot forward, the clamps disconnecting as soon as the MICS reached the end of the catapult.

"A-J, Fire forward thrusters on the feet, bring us to negative ninety. Double up top side shielding." I looked up as the thrusters fired, flipping the mech over.

"Recommendation. Top side not designed to sustain landing." I rolled my eyes at the AI's obvious complaint at the tactic.

"A-J, trust me. When I give the word, right us and brace for impact. Full vertical thrust and inertial compensation at maximum at that mark. Until then, we stay at negative ninety." The computer acknowledged after I spoke. Flame continued to wash across the shielding as I aimed the weapon vertically, a crosshair appearing on the screen. Finally, the flames died away, the base becoming visible below. The IFF and threat tracker systems were already lighting up, showing dozens of targets, from tanks to anti-air cannons. I smirked, speaking again. "A-J, activate chaff, give me target acquisition assistance. I don't want a single round missing. Notify when ready to fire." The machine responded almost instantaneously.

"Ready. Initiate fire?" a giant green text box appeared on the forward veiwscreen, reading 'initiate fire?'. I squeezed the trigger under my right index finger, the craft vibrating as a rapid booming echoed forth. I no longer had direct control of the arms, the AI system auto adjusting the arms to aim the weapon at new targets with incredible precision. Usually, I left fine tuning and motor balance to the AI, but, since we were falling, that was entirely un-needed, freeing it's processing power. It focused fire on the area around the projected landing point, an open area likely used as a landing zone for aircraft. Several plasma shots hit their mark on the MICS shielding, but most missed, their targeting confused by the mass of high heat chaff falling with the mech.

"Mark!" I released the trigger as I spoke, the mech righting itself and the thrusters firing. The mech landed with an almighty crunch, dust and debris blasting away from it. control was returned to me, myself hitting the system reload button to drop the expended munitions box from the twenty millimeter canon. The ammo counter on the helmet's HUD system read one-hundred and eighty, a full mag for the weapon. One tap of one of the other buttons on the control toggles and I had changed the video feed from standard to FLIR, white hot. Meaning, the brighter white on the screen, the warmer the object I was looking at. Several dozen infantry were already arraying themselves around the smoke cloud, their skin bright white on the thermal view. I took a deep breath and pressed another button, setting the cannon for single fire. "A-J, initiate standard operating parameters. Disable aim assistance."

"Roger. Resuming standard protocols. Weapons control returned." I grimaced as I took aim at one of the soldiers, well aware of the panic they were about to find themselves in.

* * *

Fox shook his head as he watched the feed, a long ranged camera view on the battle erupting below. The enemy forces, as numerous as they were, were scattering like ants, the arwing grade shielding on Chris's mech practically laughing at the enemy fire. Chris hadn't even expended the second magazine and he had already destroyed a large majority of the enemy force.

"Uh, Fox, picking up a highband transmission, looks like the enemy. Unencrypted." Fox glanced at the green amphibian, nodding to him. "Patching in now."

"-ase, we need help! There's a human mech tearing the base apart!" Fox furrowed his brow, concerned about who the group was contacting.

"Roger. Deploying Artimus now. stand by." Fox quickly keyed the comms array, linking in with Chris's machine below.

"Chris, enemy just put out a call for reinforcements. Sounded big." There was no response for several seconds, but on the feed, he was fighting with a pair of heavy tanks, so Fox didn't blame him for not responding instantly. He watched as the mech used it's thruster system to launch side to side, just before leaping into the air and using it's weight to crush one of the tanks, a short burst of fire from the rifle like cannon he was using destroying the other.

"Roger." Fox sighed at the one word response. Even after a year of working with them, he never seemed to loosen up, especially not in a fight.

"Slippy, let me know if and when the enemy reinforcements show up." Almost on que with his words, a warning alarm went off.

"Uh, Fox! We have a transfer gate opening in atmosphere! That….thats a venom combat mech! We haven't seen those since the Lylat wars!" sure enough, a gate had opened almost a hundred feet off the ground. A massive two legged form, nearly thirty meters tall, fell out of the gate, literally crushing one of the base structures. It was a very boxy mech, with a massive laser built into one arm, a missile pack in the other. It was designed as a siege engine by Andross himself, and although unshielded, had taken all four of their Arwings focusing fire just to kill one of them. It had become standard practice over the course of the war to use orbital bombardments on them.

"Chris! Break off and hold for reinforcements! I'm on my way down!" Fox froze before he could even get out of his chair, the comm line barking back at him.

"Negative McCloud! Still too much AA, airstrike would be ineffective. I need transfer pod one down here, now Slippy!" He could hear the strain in chris's voice, his mech barely boosting out of the way of a beam of destruction. He returned fire with a burst of fire, the rounds detonating on the armor harmlessly.

"Chris, you cant fight that thing alone! Pull back, lure it some where that we can support you!" the enemy mech opened up one of it's missile bays, but that turned out to be a mistake. Even though Chris was running laterally across the mechs vision, away from the missile arm, he had clearly been watching the missile bay. One short burst of fire caused the open bay to explode, taking the whole arm with it.

"McCloud, I told you, no. I got this. just get me that pod!" Fox sighed and nodded to slippy, watching as Chris stowed the rifle on the mechs back, pulling a grenade launcher out. Almost simultaneously, he leapt forward, twisting sideways and rolling so that the mech was sitting on the ground, feet toward the much larger machine. He fired the grenade launcher in his hands, almost at the same time as the laser weapon firing again. But his aim was dead on, hitting the top housing of the laser, blasting the arm down as it swept the beam toward him. as soon as he had fired, the thrusters on the back of the feet fired, flipping the mech backwards and bringing it back to his feet, and dodging the knocked off laser, which would have vaporized him regardless of the movement if it weren't for being knocked off target by the grenade. _Damn, I'd forgotten how this kid fights…._

"Sending you the co-ordinates for the trans pod now. kill that son of bitch." Fox didn't get a response, but he knew that was likely because Chris was totally focused.

* * *

Miyu sighed as she stared at the two utterly confused women still sitting at the table. It had only been a few minutes since Chris had left, but not a word had been said. Miyu sighed again, having noticed, how suddenly terrified Samantha had seemed when Chris loaded the weapon earlier, even Callie flinching.

"Well, you two should head home for now. he'll be back. Life of a mercenary is like this sometimes. Life never sleeps, and life is filled with people fighting, so those who live that life, never rest. Katt disappears the same way all the time." Neither moved or even reacted, forcing yet another sigh out of Miyu. "Look, he'll be fine. Really. He spent half his life on the battle field." Samantha suddenly sprang onto her feet, heading for the door.

"Like I care. Hell, he can die for all I care. Come on Callie. Lets go to your place." Miyu gave Samantha a disgusted look, just before her brain caught up. _I cant let them go without at least some protection._

"Wait up, I'll walk you two home." She instinctively touched the small hold out blaster she had at the small of her back. Hanging around Katt had taught her to be prepared for anything.

"Why bother? I'm not your friend." Callie glared at Samantha after Sammy spoke, whining faintly under her breath.

"Don't be like that Sammy. Miyu is my friend, she's very thoughtful and fun to be around. Give her a chance." Samantha rolled her eyes, leaving before Miyu had a chance to say anything. "I don't know what's gotten into her. she's not normally like this." Miyu gently patted her shoulder and smiled, moving to follow Samantha.

"Don't worry about it, I'll talk to her. just go ahead and head home. I wont be long." Callie sighed, but she was already behind Miyu, Miyu quickly trotting out the door and down the stairs. She barely made it down two flights before she was on top of the gal. "Samantha, hang on a sec!" Miyu breathed a sigh of relief as the woman stopped.

"What do you want Miyu?" Miyu slid down the railing as Samantha spoke, dropping onto the landing Samantha had stopped on.

"To walk you home. As promised." Samantha rolled her eyes before walking down the next flight of stairs, Miyu following.

"Fine. Why do you even care? This is the first time I've even met you." Miyu rolled her eyes as well, her hands instinctively falling right into the pockets of her short shorts.

"Chris cares about ya! So that means I do! Any friend of Katt's is a friend of mine. And who my friends care about, I care about. Simple as that. Do I need another reason?!" Miyu hadn't even realized that her voice had elevated as she spoke, almost to the point of sounding angry.

"Fine. Got a crush on soldier boy now or something?" Miyu couldn't stop the blush that suddenly flooded her cheeks. _Do I really seem that way?_

"N-No! he's just….. well, come on, he is pretty cute, for a human. And he's really thoughtful, once you get past that whole 'shoot first, ask questions later' attitude he _always_ has." Samantha laughed as Miyu spoke, Miyu not even realizing the hole she was digging, or that her voice had changed pitch.

"Shesh, you really do have a crush on him." Miyu glared at her, unable to stop the annoyed expression from popping onto her face.

"Hey! I never said that!" Samantha just rolled her eyes at Miyu, neither of them even noticing that they had made it too the lobby.

"so? The way your cheeks blushed up and the way your acting says otherwise." Miyu's eyes went wide, something Samantha didn't even seem to notice as they stepped out into the eerily silent street.

"Ho-how did you even notice me blushing?" Samantha smirked at the dumbfounded expression on Miyu's face, starting to seem much friendlier than she had been.

"My best friend is a Cornerian, gimme some credit on picking up some tells." Miyu sighed and looked away, unable to stop the thoughts and memories flooding her mind, or her imagination for that matter. She instantly blushed at some of the images crossing her mind, earning a small chuckle from Sam. "Proved it. you like him."

"Gah, so what if I like him a little!?" Miyu knew she sounded annoyed but it seemed to not anger sam at all. If anything, it seemed to make her happier.

"there's nothing wrong with that. I mean, he's not my type, at all, but I guess if you really know him, he might have some nice qualities to him. if you can look past him being a murderer that is." Sam's voice suddenly changed from cheery to down right hostile, making Miyu suddenly fearful that all of her cheeriness had just been a front.

"I….. you really don't like him that much, do you?" sam shrugged, earning a small sigh from Miyu. "Just give him a chance. He lost his whole family on earth. And he really seems to care about you. You keep going like this, and you'll break his heart…." Miyu did her best to let a few tears slip out, trying to sound sincere. As much as it pained her, helping Chris get with Sam would make his job a hell'uva lot easier. _You guys aren't the only ones who know how to act, star fox._

Samantha glanced at miyu and sighed, her next words so quiet that Miyu almost couldn't hear them. "Miyu…. Honestly, I don't ever want to break someone's heart. But maybe you can get him to like someone else… I don't like him. not even as a friend. And I definitely don't like how much he's lied to me." Miyu was opening her mouth to respond when a hand was suddenly wrapped over her lips, her first instinct being to try and scream as another arm clamped around her waist. She barely managed to grab the hold out pistol at the small of her back, the two shots she managed to fire just ripping off into the air. The last things miyu could remember, was a grey lupine holding Samantha, followed by a sharp impact to the side of her head.


	10. Chapter 10

I sprinted the mech behind a three story building, heat alarms ringing like crazy as I dropped the now useless grenade launcher. I had just narrowly dodged being sliced in half, boosting and spinning into a full on sprint, but the beam had still fused the cylinder for launcher in place, preventing any functionality for the weapon. One glance at my right screen showed the transfer pod only a couple hundred meters to my right.

"AJ, send the open signal to the pod!" I didn't wait for the AI to respond before I had started sprinting again, using the dual directional buttons near my thumbs to crudely control the boost system, boosting forward as soon as I was clear of the building. My choice to move turned out to be correct, as the enemy craft had vertically sliced another beam of destruction through the building, demolishing it. in seconds, I had crossed the space between the pod and myself, instantly sliding to a stop to grab the PNZ-Fifteen. The weapon looked much like an upsized panzerfuast from world war two, if it had been sized for a person standing thirty feet tall. As simple as the weapon was, literally a launch tube and large anti-tank rocket, it's shear size made it brutally effective on most targets. Almost as soon as I grabbed the weapon, a warning alarm went off, myself instinctively jumping and boosting up. The timing could not have been more perfect, the destructive beam slicing by below me as the craft tilted back until it flipped and righted again, just before hitting the ground. The jarring impact could be felt regardless of the inertial compensators. With out hesitating, I aimed at the chest of the enemy mech and fired the weapon, the rocket streaking out and detonating on impact, punching a hole clean through. the enemy craft slumped over, it's pilot killed by the rocket blast, the force of it falling causing a nearby building to collapse.

"Enemy mech destroyed. Requesting combat scan and fresh targets, over?" I keyed up the comm system as I traversed my head back and forth, looking for any signs of an enemy unit, seeing nothing but destroyed buildings and tank husks surrounding the area. Beyond the fires and smoke, nothing moved. But even still, something seemed to be nagging at the back of my mind, as if I was forgetting something. I reached back with the mech and retrieved the rifle from it's back, starting to cautiously walk forward, scanning the area yet again as AJ ran it's own scan.

"No active enemy combatants. All enemy units destroyed or fallen back. Area clear." I kept my guard up, trying to figure out where this bad feeling was coming from, Fox's voice over the mic startling me.

"Damn kid, ya left damn near nothing standing. EHU is on it's way down, prepare for exfill." I stopped, lowering the weapon and releasing the contacts for the arms, letting me operate the mech's systems. I quickly flicked through the systems, noticing the minor damage to the left arm and some of the shield capacitors on that side.

"Fox, something doesn't feel right…." I keyed the radio again as I spoke, still searching through all of the data at my disposal to try and find anything wrong in the area. In my mind, I started going back over everything that had happened that day, from leaving the hospital, Callie and Samantha visiting, even to this fight. Now that I really thought about it, this fight had been way too easy. Before the siege mech had been deployed, the enemy force still had over seventy percent of it's firepower, yet it had retreated. "This was too easy Fox. They should have put up way more of a fight, especially if they were really protecting a stolen warhead."

"Alright, what are you thinking?" he sounded almost bored, but I knew Fox well enough by now that I knew he would trust what I say.

"This fight, stealing the nuke, it's a decoy. The venom remnant already has it's own nuclear capability, and even so, I bet they could easily trade some weapons tech the UFE or UEG for some nukes. This was too high profile. And that mech is definitely not pirate standard. We should get ahold of Samantha." I slipped my hands back to the controllers and slowly began to spin as I walked further through the base, looking for any sign of an opponent, moving slowly closer to the tracking beacon the Nuke was outputting.

"Miyu's not picking up." I groaned, releasing the controllers yet again. One touch on a control screen and AJ began piloting the mech toward our destination. As soon as I gave that command, I began flicking through the tac pad on my wrist, highlighting Callie's contact and calling it. it only rang once before she picked up, her voice spilling out.

"Hey chris! Need anything?" I bit my lip, debating exactly what to say to her. I finally settled on something as the EHU dropship landed in my left hand veiwscreen.

"Can you go ask Sam something for me?"

"Sure, I can call her right now!" her response was near instantaneous, and as bouncy as ever.

"Mind asking her in person? Or taking your phone to her?" I found myself biting my lip yet again.

"Yeah, sure, just hang on a sec, someone is at the door…" I heard her moving to the door, and although I couldn't really hear her voice, I could hear the slight startle as she said hello.

"What!?" the shout spilled from the speaker, my heart unwillingly skipping a beat, hoping she wouldn't hang up the phone. "Missus Warren, slow down, what happened?" I heard the phone clattering onto a hard surface as that was said, the voices becoming dimmer, likely moved further from the speaker.

"I… I don't know! I've been talking to the cops for the last twenty minutes! They don't know who took her!" I didn't recognize the older woman's voice barely able to hear it actually, but it was vaguely familiar in several ways.

"PUT ME ON SPEAKER CALLIE!" I shouted at the top of my lungs, hoping the noise would gain her attention.

"Chris! Sam wa-" she sounded utterly panicked, myself not letting her finish speaking.

"I know, put me on speaker with her mother, give me all of the information you can. I will find her, and bring her home, okay?" I heard the phone get set down before the sound changed, the background sounds amplifying. "Ma-am, what happened, every detail you know!"

"I… Wh-"

"I'm a mercenary, I can find your daughter, just tell me what happened." There was several seconds of silence after I cut her off, the woman likely debating if she should tell me anything.

"I was only told about it a little while ago! the security for callie's building saw three men grab my daughter and another girl. The other girl managed to pull a weapon but she only managed to fire it off into the air! That's all I know, I needed to make sure Callie was alright!" I could tell the woman was about to break down sobbing, just by the sound of her voice.

"It's going to be alright Ma-am, we'll find your daughter, no matter what."

* * *

"Fox! I got a hit on Miyu's tracker! They're on Zoness!" Fox perked up at the sound of Slippy's voice, looking to the door of the briefing room as Slippy came charging in. Chris was already in the room, his rifle taken apart as he was oiling it, preparing for a fight.

"How long until we get there?"

"Just a few minutes, Peppy got us a gate jump straight there. Actually, we should be there now!" Fox nodded to him, glancing at Chris for a second as the kid expertly slipped the bolt carrier in his hand into place in the upper receiver, quickly aligning the separated upper and lower and slapping the pins in place, faster than Fox could ever dream of doing so. They quickly left the room, heading down the corridor straight to the bridge.

"Rob, do you have Miyu's transponder?" Fox was speaking almost immediately upon entering the bridge, staring at the filthy brown world on his view screen. Zoness had never recovered from being used as a garbage world by andross's forces, dumping the wrecks of hundreds of ships and immeasurable amounts of waste into it's vast oceans over several decades. Pirates and scavengers now covered the planet, what little industry and commerce left on the world focusing on deep water mining and salvage operations.

"Affirmative. Signal received from deep water salvage rig. Scanning now." as the Robot spoke, a hologram of the facility appeared, showing a large structure, much like a human oil rig, but instead of being designed to drill for minerals, it was situated over the hulk of a dread naught, with crane systems to bring chunks of the ship up and breakdown facilities to break the chunks down into usable scrap. A single venomonian frigate floated in the air near the rig, the entire structure being modified with weapons emplacements. As he watched, a thermal scan swept the facility, showing one of the salvage bays filled with what looked to be people, as well signatures all around the facility. "Estimate, sixty prisoners, and eighty enemy combatants. Frigate contains flight of four fighters, unknown type. Containment area likely located here." It highlighted the salvage bay as the robot spoke, Slippy already following him.

"I think the _Blue Marine Two_ might be able to hold the prisoners, but someone would need to open the docking bay here." Fox glanced at him as the amphibian spoke, pointing at the docking facility.

"Too easy, if someone can get me down there. I could do it alone, but an extra barrel or two would go a long way. No way the MICS can help on this one." Fox cursed, suddenly wishing Falco was there.

"If we had Falco, I'd go with you, but we don't. I can get you down there, but it wont be stealthy. I can at least distract the frigate with my Arwing, Slippy, if you pilot the Blue Marine, ROB, you use the Great Fox against that frigate, we should be able to do this." silence fell on the bridge for a second as they all thought over the hastily thought up plan.

"Actually, I think I have a better idea for getting Chris down there, and it would at least provide him with support outside of the rig." A wave of Slippy's hand slid the facility scan out of view, quickly bringing up a holo of the MICS as the amphibian spoke. "With a little work, I could add a pair of ion engines to the feet of the MICS, as well as a pair of G-Diffusers for stability. I think we have enough power on the system to run those, if we cut the sensor suites. I've done the math and it should allow the MICS to hover and maneuver in the air. That would leave you to focus on the air threat Fox." Fox nodded, actually really liking the sound of that idea.

"Alright, get on it. the more time we waste, the more they could do to them. Chris, help him out, I'll contact General Pepper." The pair nodded before leaving the bridge, Fox keying up the comm systems.

* * *

I quickly powered the MICS up, ignoring the voice of the AI as I set up the new software Slippy and I had added to the system to run the new boosters and stabilizers. Slippy thought it would make it easier if we made the twin Ion engines on the feet into a detachable equipment rather than a permeant upgrade. It required too much power to use at all times, having to power off most of the extra systems just to power the system.

"Alright, remember, AJ will handle the decent. Were lucky there are low clouds out, you wont be detected until he begins his braking maneuver." I nodded without thinking of how stupid a notion that was over a radio. "AJ, you are just going to hold on station until he's done. No penetrating munitions. Got it?"

"Roger." I gulped before marching the mech over to the elevator, riding it to the top. As soon as I was up there, I set the mech into the catapult, ready to launch. The bay door opened ahead of me, my eyes flicking between the many readouts on my screens, taking a last second check of the mechs armaments. All it had for this mission was the basic twenty-five millimeter chaingun, loaded with large holopoint rounds, specifically to reduce the penetration of the fast moving rounds. These rounds had also been filled with a sodium, and potassium mixture, designed to have extreme effects on soft targets, the natural reaction between the metals and water causing massive and devastating expansion on a person or other water based object without having the penetration of normal round. Although, the shear size of the twenty-five millimeter rounds made almost all infantry armor useless against the rounds. Once the bay door had finished opening, I was slammed back against the saddle as the catapult launched the craft into the atmosphere. Nothing about the planet was uncontaminated now, as green flames ripped by the hull. It was actually advised to bring breathing equipment to the planet if you intended to stay for more than a few hours, and although the planet was originally comprised of fresh water oceans, much like Aquas, there wasn't a drop of potable water naturally occurring on the planet. As the flames fell away, dark brown clouds started to dominate my view screens until the MICS plunged into them. darkness filling the chamber.

"AJ, Activate low light mode, passive infrared." All of the screens became a faint white, now grey clouds rushing by the cameras, a barely visible brighter white view of the station and ship visible through the clouds. The passive infrared made anything that gave off heat a light white glow on the screen, making it easier to see structures and people through fog, as well as highlighting objects better in no lum situations, as well as the basic night vision giving a clear view, even with the low amount of light, making the normally fuzzy and unclear IR much clearer. "Alright AJ, bring the mobility system online, prepare for air combat maneuvers, start high lighting high threat targets." I felt the boosters fire, bringing my legs up into a squat. Slippy and I had decided to add sub-routines into the leg controls for the boost system, controlling this system's engine power by squatting and extending the legs, the AI helping manage the power and load balancing to keep from toppling the mech in the air, and allowing myself to focus on the actual movements. Red diamonds started appearing all across the rig, some vibrant red, most just dull. The vibrant ones were marking larger threats, like anti-air and cannons that could actually bring the mech down. fluid warnings were going off on the readouts, warning of the acid rain the MICS was falling through as it dropped out of the clouds, myself slamming my feet down to stop my decent, falling to just a few dozen feet above the rig, and about two kilometers away. almost immediately upon stabilizing, I moved my legs back and extended them, tilting the engines back and increasing the thrust, starting a forward glide, as soon as I was moving forward, I started compressing and extending my legs, almost like a cat starpawing, causing the mech to drift back and forth, making landing a shot on it all the harder. I was saving the mobility assist system for when I was directly over the rig, planning on using it for short range evasive maneuvers. As soon as I hit eight hundred meters, I started firing, the sodium instantly reacting with the water in the air and causing each round to look like a low grade plasma round, it being very obvious when I struck an organic target, a brilliant flash marking a hit, versus the round just splattering against the metal rig. As soon as I was closer, I started sweeping fire across groups of soldiers, keeping it down to short bursts of rounds, scattering or killing most of the enemies on the facility's landing platform.

"Ready to deploy pilot." The AI's voice made me take a deep breath, knowing it was right,

"Alright, transfer control from Pilot to Adjutant, open the hatch." As I said that, I released the contacts and grabbed my weapon from it's clamp, the legs releasing me as I began to climb out, the hatch already opening to let in the bleak brown sky, thick sheets of rain falling from the sky. A strange mixture of fuel, hydralic fluid, and oil permeated the air, filling my nose the second the hatch had opened. I quickly leapt off the mech, it catching me with one hand before tipping itself over, allowing it to dump me onto the landing pad without causing an injury. I was running as soon as my feet were back under me, my boots slipping in the greasy rain covered deck, almost unable to run in fact. As soon as I reached to door leading into the actual scrap facility, I slapped the switch for it to open, my weapon already raised and aimed at the door. In one smooth motion, I flowed into the hall way, two bangs assaulting my ears as I fired a pair of rounds into a startled primate, continuing into the narrow hall and watching for any signs of an open door, and listening carefully behind me at the same time as I briskly walked deeper in, keeping my weapon raised and poised to fire. After a while, I reached the stair well I was looking for, stepping into it and quickly clearing the flight up before moving down, keeping my muzzle trained on the freshest section of bare metal walls as I moved down several stories, before slipping out of the stair way and into a small rundown processing area. It still had the conveyor belts and heavy machinery needed to break down salvage into usable pieces scattered about the room, making a maze like environment. I kept sweeping the room with my eyes, my weapon aiming anywhere my eyes went until I caught sight of a pair of unarmored primates, both armed with plasma rifles, up on a catwalk for one of the shredding machines. Without a second of thought, I popped the weapon over to them, firing a pair of controlled pairs into them. one of the rounds missed and pinged off the machinery, but it didn't matter as one primate slumped up against the machine while the other toppled over the safety rail and into the inactive machinery. Almost simultaneous with that, a red bolt of energy shot by my shoulder from behind, myself diving to the ground and twisting around mid air, landing on my back, weapon already aimed toward the source, watching as that controlled pair pinged off machinery, the shooter having already ducked down. several more shots came from other areas of the room, several all hiding just on the other side of a conveyor belt. I pulled one of my two grenades from it's pouch, yanking the pin and letting the safety lever plink off, waiting a pair of seconds before tossing it over the conveyor. I heard the grenade strike the metal floor, and the beginning of one of them shouting, but the rest disappeared as a sudden and sharp boom reverberated through the room, shrapnel pinging about the room for a second or two after. As soon as the grenade had gone off, rolled back on my chest and shoved myself onto my feet, straight into a full on sprint, quickly zig zaging through the machinery. I almost slammed into an armored primate, a trio of rounds slamming him to the floor before he could react, still wildly sprinting through the room until I reached the door I wanted, slapping the control switch, only to receive an angry beep from the console.

"Fuck. Alright, we can do this." I couldn't stop the mutter from slipping out, quickly climbing the side of one of the shredders, staying prone on top of the frame to keep from silhouetting myself above it. there were at least three primates in the room, trying to search through it and find me, shouting between themselves but clearly, none of them had any idea where I was. They were all poorly trained, none of them looking anywhere but the paths through the room or working with the others to clear the room, just all mindlessly and aimlessly wandering as if that was an effective way to find an intruder. I sighed, actually looking down my optic to aim at one, simply lining the red wedge of the ACOG on one of their chests and squeezing the trigger. The bang reverberated through the room, the primate I had aimed for clutching at the wound on his chest before falling to the ground. The other two were instantly panicking, both trying to figure out exactly where the shot had come from. One never got a chance as I lined up and fired, watching as his head was jerked back, blood spattering out the back. The third at least figured out I was on the machine, firing several red bolts toward me, none landing near me. One well placed shot silenced him before I slid off the machine. As soon as I hit the ground, I trotted over to the door, mashing my one two pound block of C4 onto the door, an electronic wireless detonator already rigged on it.

* * *

Samantha groaned as she sat up, her entire body aching from being on the cold hard steel floor. She had no idea where she was, and the last thing she could remember was getting hit in the head, and the throbbing on her temple definitely agreed with that faint memory.

"Hey, your awake!" she glanced at the source of the voice, instantly recognizing Miyu sitting against a wall beside her. she also took in her surroundings, realizing she was in a prison of some sort, with nothing but steel bars on three sides, showing dozens of other cells, all completely barren, no toilets, no beds, just steel. And most of those cells were occupied. Needless to say, the stench was absolutely overwhelming.

"Where the hell are we?" Miyu shrugged at Samantha's words, Samantha shifting to sit up against the wall. Miyu already was sitting against the wall, her ear's laid back on her head, electric blue eyes fixed on the floor.

"I wish I knew, honestly." Samantha could feel the fear seeming to radiate off the feline, heck, the whole room seemed to be just dripping in the emotion.

 _Damn it…. what's going to happen to us?_ Samantha couldn't help but bury her face in her hands, already starting to cry.

 _You need to be more careful. You almost let everyone in this place hear that._ Samantha startled as a voice seemed to echo in her ears.

"Wh-who was that!?" Miyu stared at her looking completely confused. "You didn't hear that?"

"Hear what sammy?" If anything, Miyu looked even more confused, her whiskers twitching.

 _She cant hear me. I can barely feel you. I need you to trust me, okay? You can break us out._ Samantha started glancing around, trying to figure out where this feminine voice was coming from.

 _Am I going insane or something?_ She felt several flashes suddenly rip through her mind, all images she had never seen before, every single one seeming to be instantly burned into her mind.

 _No, you're not. A guard will likely come by shortly, now that you are awake. The images you are seeing are from the guards memories, you might be able to get this facility's layout from them._ Samantha absently nodded, having no idea what was going on, who this person was, or how any of this was happening, but something told her to trust this voice, picking up on after images with those that kept flashing past. She couldn't place how she knew, but those almost background images, as unclear as they were, contained a familiar face, one she couldn't place, yet somehow knew.

 _Okay, what do I need to do?_ She waited patiently for a response, trying to go over the images in her head again. After a while, she began to form her own mental map of the building, feeling almost like she had walked through the halls before herself. _Wow, this is just… weird._

"Are you okay? You freaked out for a minute, and now you are being eerily quiet…" she glanced up at Miyu, having almost forgotten she was there.

"Oh, um, it was nothing. Just wasn't really awake yet." Miyu raised an eyebrow at her, Samantha leaning much closer to her. "I think I have a way out. Just trust me, okay?" Miyu gave her yet another totally puzzled look, about to speak when an alarm rang out, the two girls glancing between each other, just before the room was rocked by something. A deep boom reverberated through the room, Samantha seeing an armored primate rush past her cell. There was another boom, this one much louder, to the point that she had to cover her ears from it. there were several shouts, followed by two successive pairs of bangs, Samantha tentatively moving to the front of her cell, trying to see down the corridor between cells. Several other occupants were doing the same, Samantha seeing a single figure approaching, an oddly familiar human in grey and black tactical gear, a bulky black human assault rifle raised and poised for a fight as he seemed to simply glide toward her, smoothly and quickly.

"C-Chris!" she was shocked when she recognized him, even more shocked when he seemed to ignore her, spinning on the spot and walking backwards for a second, before turning back around and stopping next to her, instantly dropping to a knee.

"Give me a minute, okay? I promise, I will get you out of here." With that, he picked up and began moving again, moving further into the cell block.


	11. Chapter 11

I reached the security station at the end of the makeshift cell block, seeing a full rack of plasma rifles next to a single desk, filled with security screens, a giant switch board controlling all of the cell doors. As old school as the set up was, it was all that was really needed to keep their prisoners in check. I quickly grabbed the intercom microphone, keying it as soon as it reached my hand.

"Stay calm, do not panic. I'm getting all of you out of here. Anyone who has experience with a weapon, come down here as soon as I open the doors. Everyone else, just sit tight for a moment." As soon as I finished, I dropped the mic and flicked every switch on the switch board, opening all of the cells. Only a handful of the captives came down to the security station, a pair of german shepard like canines that looked almost like twins, a human male and an amphibian. Oddly enough, matching the number of plasma weapons. "Alright, each of you take a rifle, what's your experience?" not one seemed to hesitate at all as I spoke, even despite my clear young age.

"Recreational." The amphibian was the one to speak, his high pitched voice sounding worse to the ears than slippy's.

"Cop." The human, who looked to be in his sixties at the youngest.

"Pathfinders, both of us." I nodded as one of the canines spoke, knowing the pathfinders were the Cornerian equivalent of special forces.

"Alright, you two, take rear security. We're going to be moving to the underwater dock, a submersible will meet us there. You two will be with me on point. Any one else willing to pick up a weapon should do so on the way. Get me an exact count, meet you at the far door, got it?" the four all nodded, going down the line of cells as I rushed back to the cell I had spotted Miyu and Samantha in.

"Sam, Miyu, are you two alright?" the two were relatively clean compared to all of the other captives, but there was a line of dried blood along the side of Sam's head.

"Yeah, we're go-" Miyu had started speaking, but Samantha suddenly and violently cut her off.

"There are more people elsewhere! We have to help them!" I stared at her, utterly bewildered, Miyu matching my expression.

"What?! How could you even know that! You only just woke up a minute ago!" I just watched as Miyu turned on her, her startled words instantly drawing a response.

"Just…. Trust me, okay!? I'm not insane!" myself and Miyu exchanged a confused glance, Samantha instantly catching on to both of our confusion. "Damn it! I'll go help them myself, since you clearly wont."

"Wait, Sam!" I cursed to myself as she darted past me, rushing out the door I had blown in. one of the armed prisoners tried to stop her, but she slipped by him too. "Damn it, Miyu, here." I quickly yanked my pistol out and handed it to her, yanking several magazines for it as well, waiting for her to tuck those into her belt line before yanking my tac pad from my arm, the head's up display my eyepiece was displaying cutting out when I removed it from it's mount. "Take this, it has a map, I'll catch up." She didn't get a chance to say more before I was rushing out of the room, sprinting after sam. Every breath and step hurt as they all jarred the injury in my side, to the point that I let go of the grenade launcher and was now gripping my side. I had no idea where Samantha had run, and yet, I had a strange feeling I was being guided through the halls as I let my instincts take over. With in minutes, and several floors further down, I literally slammed into Samantha, having seen her standing in the middle of the corridor, turning to face me just as a pair of enemy soldiers stepped out of a side corridor. As soon as I was on top of her, and shielding her from the two soldiers I opened fire, one handing my heavy rifle as it bucked violently into my shoulder. One of them dropped, the other firing off a random blast from his rifle before ducking back the way he came, myself finishing off what little remained in the magazine before yanking Samantha to her feet, very roughly shoving her into an open side room, only hoping it was empty. As soon as we were inside, I dropped the empty magazine and slapped a fresh one in.

"What the hell were you thinking, running off on your own with no weapon no less!? Are you trying to get yourself killed!?" as I finished shouting that at her, I leaned back out the door, firing a trio of rounds into the primate as he stepped back around the corner to follow us.

"Because neither of you were taking me seriously!" I finally really looked at her, seeing just how red in the face she was from running and shouting, her chest heaving likely as fast as my own.

"Because you are talking crazy! if you woke up only a couple of minutes before I got there, there is no way you could know if there were others in this facility!" she screamed in frustration, her fists clenched against her temples.

"I cant explain how I know! I just do!" I only just now began to notice I was in a small cafeteria, a door on the opposite corner of the room sliding open for an armored canine to walk in, weapon already leveled on us. I panicked, grabbing Samantha's shoulders and violently twisting her around me, putting myself between her and the shooter as I lost my balance, hearing a plasma blast go off as we fell to the floor, my rifle clattering as it fell completely forgotten. She was on top of me, my rifle lying beside us just outside of my reach, the only thing keeping us alive being the tables between us and the canine. I quickly rolled us both over, hearing her cry out as my full weight was suddenly and violently on her. but I payed no attention to that, quickly grabbing my rifle and popping up to a knee. The enemy had moved deeper into the room, weapon raised and still pointed roughly toward us. I almost panicked, rapidly squeezing the trigger to fire several rounds at him, all of which hit, but not before he fired off a pair of his own shots, the first grazing my left arm, the second slamming into the wall behind us.

"Son of a bitch!" my arm was literally burning in agony, all of my muscles clenched from it. I barely managed to drop onto my rear beside Samantha, who shot to her feet as soon as I was no longer above her.

"You're on fire!" she shouted that as she slipped around behind me and I felt her start beating my vest, myself only just realizing that my back had a burning sensation too.

"How bad is it?" she was silent for a second, the lack of impacts on my back telling me the fire had been put out at the very least.

"I think it went through your vest. Your bleeding, but I cant tell how deep it went." I nodded, figuring that, since I wasn't having trouble breathing or moving, just a sharp ache on my back, that it was likely very shallow.

"Alright, don't worry about it. let's go find these people you think are here, but you stay behind me. Got it?" I stood and turned to face her as I spoke, herself standing up as well.

"Okay." She looked as pale as a ghost now, and I could see she was trembling too. "Is your arm okay?" I glanced at the blackened section of my sleeve, my arm still feeling a burning pain, but it wasn't restricting my movement, and likely wasn't deep at all. So I nodded to her, rather than verbally saying I was alright. "S-So we need to go back into that hallway, and continue down it for about seventy feet. There's going to be an elevator, but it's well hidden." I shrugged and stepped out into the hall, weapon raised and ready. I had to stop at the cross hall to check both directions for threats, but after that, there wasn't even a single door. She suddenly grabbed my shoulder, bringing me to a sudden stop. "Here." She stopped at a bare section of wall, right at a seam between panels. I barely managed to see the rivet she pressed before her hand covered it, noticing that it was different from a normal rivet, the entire panel beside it sliding back and rotating up and out of the way.

"Shit. How'd you even know that was here?" she glanced at me as I stepped past her, quickly clearing the small chamber. It was of very different construction to the hall, not rusted at all, and extremely well lit. there were bare frames on the walls, the main walkway being a metal grated platform.

"I… I don't actually know." I shrugged, slapping the button to summon the elevator. It barely took it a minute for the elevator to arrive, the bare metal cage looking more like it belonged on a construction site. It had plenty of room for the two of them, both remaining silent as it ground up to an area between levels. As soon as the grated gate slid open, I stepped out, wincing as I accidently brushed my injured arm against the wall.

"How can you stand doing this? killing people all the time… it's…. well, horrible." Her voice wasn't forceful or directly angry, but I could tell that it clearly disgusted her. I paused for a second, wanting to look at her, but knowing that likely wasn't wise in the narrow hallway.

"Could you just sit and watch as your family was murdered in front of you? I agree, taking a life is a horrible thing to do. But sometimes, taking a life is the lesser of two evils. And I'd rather fight to protect those I care about then watch them die." It became much harder to not look at her as I spoke, my calm response to her kind of unsettling me. There weren't many people who managed to get me to actually say something from the heart, and yet, she managed to with one anger laced statement. "why are you not freaking out and yelling at me right now?" I managed to glance at her as I spoke again, noticing her look away.

"It shouldn't be much farther now…" I shrugged at her obvious deflection of the question, continuing down the corridor as we approached another door. "It should be on the other side of this door… I think there's only one guard in the room." I glanced at her again, curious yet again how she knew any of this.

"Alright, get behind me, and don't enter the room until I tell you too. got it?" she nodded and I slapped the door switch, stepping inside almost in sync with the door sliding open. the first thing I really noticed in the room was a single armored ape, beginning to stand from a seat behind a security desk, a weapon in hand. a single controlled pair slumped him into the console, my eyes already beginning to sweep the rest of the room.

* * *

Samantha jumped as two more bangs filled her ears, still hidden behind the door jam. No matter how hard she tried, every single time he fired, her memories kept cropping back up. She had no idea how she wasn't just screaming in a corner right now, being utterly terrified. But somehow, she was still going.

"It's clear! Come on!" she took a breath to try and settle herself before stepping inside, trying to not look at the dead person. The room itself was very different than the other holding area, on her left being what looked like a medical research lab from hell, filled with chairs and operating tables with strange contraptions and high tech laser surgical stations. Most of which was covered in blood. To her right was a hall filled with crackling energy barriers blocking cells off from the hall. The one cell she could see into was unoccupied, but was much better as far as accommodations went. It had a toilet, sink, and a cot, but nothing else. She nearly puked as she watched chris non-chalantly yank the primate off the console and staring at it's controls, his rifle held loosely in one hand at his side. "Go see if there is anyone actually here." She nodded to him, very glad to be stepping away from the corpse. She was instantly moving down the cell block, glancing into each of the cells, finding them empty. As she moved deeper down the hall, she began to grow more frantic, just hoping to find someone.

 _No! don't come any closer! There's a tr-_ she felt the same voice from earlier, but it was cut off as she heard Chris shouting behind her. "No! there's a-" she didn't hear the rest of the shout, as electrical currents suddenly started arcing between the floor and the ceiling, covering the entrance to the hall and moving toward her. she panicked, sprinting deeper in as she screamed, the electrical arcs quickly gaining on her. "Got it!" she barely heard that shout over the crackling electricity behind her, that cutting off just a second later, all of the energy fields covering the cells dropping too. by the burn marks on the plating she had to have been a step away from being electrocuted.

"Th-Thanks!" she shouted that back as she stood there panting, barely able to breath.

"Help, please!" she heard the very weak feminine voice to her right, instantly looking that way to see a vulpine woman trying to prop herself up on a cot. She looked like she hadn't been properly fed in weeks, her blue and white fur matted and unkempt. As Samantha watched, the woman slumped over, falling off the cot. She was barely wearing anything, just a thin open sided patient's gown.

"Chris! I found someone!" Samantha shouted that over her shoulder as she rushed into the room, instantly crouching at the woman, who had passed out completely. She heard the pounding of boots on the plating behind her, seeing Chris dart behind her, likely checking the last two cells, before moving back. She only just now noticed just how badly he was sweating, much more so than he had been when he found her.

"Is she alive?" Samantha nodded and he instantly continued. "Think you can move her on your own?" she nodded again, slinging one of the vulpines arms over her shoulder, shocked at how light the woman was.

"Are you okay?" he looked at her for a second before nodding and beckoning her to follow him as he stepped out. He suddenly stopped, holding up his injured left arm, his hand in a fist.

"Roger that Fox…. Yeah, I got her…. fuck….. alright, moving. Out." She just listened as he clearly spoke into his radio before he started moving again, Samantha doing her best to follow. Despite being lighter than she looked, the woman was much taller than herself, and probably weighed at least her body weight, making It very hard to move. It took a fair amount of time to reach the elevator, Sam gently sitting the woman against the rail to try and give her muscles a break.

"What was that about Chris?" he looked at her as he told the elevator to go back down, his expression totally blank.

"Slippy had to pull the sub back, they got the other prisoners out but we now have a different evac. Have to make our way up to the landing pad. A-J should have cleared most of the threats outside by now." she nodded as the elevator lowered, trying to use the moment to catch her breath. As she watched, she saw him clutching his side, a look of pain on his face. She was shocked when he suddenly looked at her, speaking to her.

"In case something happens, when you get outside, you are looking for a MICS, it's going to carry you out of here. Okay? Do you know what a MI-" she cut him off, knowing what MICS stood for, her brother being a pilot for one on earth.

"I got it. and I know what a MICS is." He nodded, looking away from her. she kept an eye on him, part of her worried that he had said that. It gave her the impression that he was expecting something to happen. The elevator stopped and he raised his rifle, instantly stepping out and sweeping both directions before beckoning for her to follow. She groaned as she picked up the unconscious vulpine, following him out and to a stair case, groaning as she remembered just how many stairs there had been just getting down to this level.

"I'll help." She glanced at him as he slung his rifle, slinging the woman's other arm over his shoulder.

"But what if we get attacked?" he just glanced at her and shrugged before starting his way up the steps, Samantha forced to follow him up. Going up the stairs was very slow going, but he somehow was helping carry the woman and keeping his rifle raised at the same time, one handing the rifle with the stock under his armpit the whole time. They were about to open the door outside when the entire rig violently shook, all the lighting switching to emergency red lights, the trio being unable to stay on their feet. Samantha was lucky enough to keep herself on the landing they were on, managing to keep ahold of the vixen as well. By the clattering sound she heard, Chris had been sent tumbling down at least a flight of stairs. The rig instantly began to groan, several pops reverberating through the structure as the floor began to tilt, Samantha sliding away from the stairs, barely managing to hit the wall feet first, just seconds before an almighty snap, being followed by the rig falling and hitting the water, lifting Samantha off the floor and slamming her back down on it.

"Samantha, you still alive?" she heard the shout as she moaned, her entire body aching from the impact.

"Yeah. I still have the woman too!" as she shouted back, she looked back at the stairs, seeing Chris gingerly step over to the landing, clutching his arm, a small trickle of blood coming from his hairline. "Are you okay!?" she was almost panicking, able to easily tell that he was in excruciating pain.

"Yeah, I'm fine." he grabbed his rifle as he spoke, just before gingerly sliding down to her. everything was canted at an angle at the moment, Samantha able to hear the metal and structure groaning all around her. "Come on, we need to get to the other side of the rig." She nodded, the pair picking the woman up before they started the awkward move down the hall, half on the wall, half on the floor. With the short distance between herself and Chris, she could hear his radio buzz in his ear, not knowing what was being said to Chris. "Yeah, Fox, we're alive and moving. Will advise if anything comes up….. yes, I know we don't have a lot of time." As soon as he finished that statement, he suddenly stopped and slung the woman over his shoulders, straight into a firemens carry, totally ignoring her lack of clothing. As soon as she was on his shoulders, he took off at a run, the carry allowing him to keep control of his weapon. As they ran, she started to feel the structure shifting again, the hall they were in tilting back compared to them, likely meaning the corner of the structure behind them was likely sinking now. as the angle of the wall continued to increase, Chris suddenly stopped, looking straight at her. "you need to hold her as high up as you can." He spoke as he lowered her back to the plating, Samantha taking the woman from him. as soon as he was unburdened, he turned around and ran at the floor, using it as a ramp up to a different hallway. As soon as he was up there, he spun around and prepared to receive the woman. Samantha put her hands under the woman's armpits, shoving her up with every ounce of strength she could muster. He managed to get a grip on her bicep, hauling her up like a sack. She grimaced at the image, but this was no time to complain. As they did this, the tilt of the hall had increased, making the wall he was on more and more level, and the one she was on steeper.

"I don't think I can make it up there!" she could feel fear creeping into her system, a bang below her drawing her attention. She could see murky brown water starting to flood the hallway, causing her to panic. "Chris! It's flooding!" she looked up at him, seeing him holding his hand out for her.

"Jump, I will catch you!" she hesitated glancing down at the water far below, feeling her shoes starting to slip on the ever increasing angle of the wall. "Samantha!" his shout shook her free, jumping toward him as hard as she could. He caught her outstretched hand, standing and pulling at the same time to pull her up. As soon as she was up, he grabbed one of the vixen's arms and started dragging her, much to Samantha's surprise. "Just grab her arm and help!" she did so, the pair dragging her along until they hit a door at the end of the hall, Chris instantly slapping the door switch. It opened to open air, thick globs of rain splattering everywhere. And nowhere to step, just deck plating so far slanted they couldn't step on it and brown horizon.

"What now?" she was turning toward him when she heard a door open behind them, seeing Chris let go of the vixen, his rifle snapping up. She followed the line of the weapon, seeing a pair of primates, both with life vests. One of them had a pistol, Samantha screaming in fright. She had to cover her ears as he fired a trio of rounds, Samantha not closing her eye's in time to not see one of the primates brains burst out the back of it's skull. She heard foots steps on the plating, too terrified to open her eyes. Something was shoved into her hands, startled as she opened her eyes, seeing the blood covered life vest. "Wh-What?!"

"Just get that on!" he turned away from her, doing his best to strap a second life vest on the still unconscious vixen. "Fox, change of plans. I'm putting Sam and a prisoner in the water, get em out of here!" she heard him say that into his radio, giving him a shocked look as he dragged the vixen to the edge of the door, putting her feet first before sending her sliding toward the murky brown water. She went wide eyed, shocked he had just done that, still half in the life vest.

"You-" he cut her off before she could finish, forcing her to finish putting the vest on.

"No time, get down there, make sure she doesn't drown. She's your responsibility now, don't worry about me!" he roughly shoved her off before she could respond, Samantha screaming the whole way down. the water felt like a cement wall as she slammed into it, plunging below the surface. She tasted the disgusting water in her mouth, able to taste fuel and oils in the water, as well as feel rust and other debris. As soon as she reached the surface, she coughed out the water, puking almost immediately as well. She panicked as she tried to rotate, looking for the vixen. Several gunshots reached her ears, trying to ignore the sound as she spotted the bright yellow vest. It took her several seconds to swim over to her, surprised to find her eyes open.

"Are you okay!?" the woman weakly shook her head, her turquoise eyes lazily looking back at Sam as Sam shouted.

"Nooo…." She barely heard the faint raspy whisper, grabbing on to the vixen. More gun shots drew her attention back up to the sinking rig, seeing several red bolts rip out of the open door, Chris still silhouetted by the emergency lights. Suddenly, red light burst in the hallway, Samantha watching as he was blasted out the open door.

"Chris!" she shouted at the top of her lungs as she watched him hit the water, disappearing beneath the surface. She watched for several seconds before she realized that he wasn't coming back up, instantly panicking. She quickly released herself from the life vest, taking a deep breath before diving into the water, it stinging her eyes as she forced herself to keep them open. Eerie red light filled the area, illuminating the water just enough to see shapes and no more. An electrical line exploded on the sinking rig, the small explosion giving off a brilliant flash, illuminating Chris, his weapon still attached to him by his sling. Samantha instantly started swimming toward him, trying her best to hold her breath in. it didn't take long at all for her body to start forcing the air out of her, her head starting to hurt as she became dizzier. _Come on, not much further!_ She was within feet of his sinking form as she continued to chase him her vision quickly going black, Samantha unable to hold it back. She could swear she touched him just as she lost consciousness.


	12. Chapter 12

"You need to tell her Fox! She deserves to know!" Samantha recognized the weak feminine voice, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't place it. her head was killing her, and she frankly had no desire to move whatso ever.

"Krystal, we cant! Our orders were to protect her without anyone knowing! It could cause a panic!" that voice she instantly recognized as Fox McCloud, someone she had only met once.

"She's got a good point Fox. We tell her, she knows to defend herself. And I can stop pretending to like her." she recognized Chris's voice, letting her eye's slip open as she heard that. She was in a long thin room with half a dozen specialized medical beds, with all sorts of medical instruments built into them. she was in one of those beds, the back tilted up enough at the moment to let her see Fox, and a twig thin female vulpine who's blue color instantly struck chords in her memory, but she couldn't place where from with Chris standing between them, his left arm in a sling, and his bare torso covered in bandages

"Deserve to know what?" Samantha's voice was much weaker than she intended, it instantly causing her headache to intensify. The Vixen just looked to her and smirked, something about the smirk and her turquoise eyes clicking into place as the two males started at her words.

"Oh, don't you worry Samantha, it will only be a matter of time before you figure it out!" with that, she turned and left, her steps bouncy and exuberant, despite her clearly malnourished and abused body.

"Wait! Krystal!" Fox rushed after her, both of them disappearing out the door, leaving Chris standing at the end of the bed, his shoulders slumping.

"Great, just leave me to deal with the stupid little girl." His voice hadn't been loud enough for her to hear, but she somehow knew what he said.

"What was that?!" he looked at her and grunted, leaving that as his only response. "Okay, what the hell is going on Chris!" he just glared at her, Samantha just now noticing that he was armed, his handgun securely in a holster on his thigh.

"Short version? I don't like you. I never have. I think you are a prissy little brat who has never had to fight for anything in her life and thinks everything should be as she says it is. And I'm being payed to guard you for some god damned reason. There, simple enough for ya!?" as he finished his vehement words, he stepped around her bed, dropping to sit on one of the other beds. Somehow, despite his words and the anger clearly heard in his voice, she knew that anger wasn't entirely for her. although she could easily tell that he wasn't lying about not liking her.

"You… were being payed to protect me?" she was more shocked by that than anything else.

"Yes. You are aware I'm a mercenary right? Fox got it in his head that the best way to keep you safe was to place an agent close enough to you to try and prevent a kidnapping by… forces unknown. Okay, that's a blatant lie, but you, being a civilian, are not allowed to know who." She just stared at him for several seconds, not really sure as to what to say "That said. Thank you. for at least trying to save my life back there." She looked at him, confused for a second until she remembered what had happened on the rig.

"About that…. How long have I been out, where were we, does mom know I'm alright, and how did we survive?" he grunted as she tried to sit up, finding herself lacking the strength to.

"Two days, a salvage rig on Zoness, yes, and Slippy recovered us in a submarine, A-J pulled Krys from the water." She was quiet for a minute, debating what to say. Her mind was still reeling from what he had just told her, so nonchalantly and coldly.

"Are you're injuries okay?" he glanced down and shrugged at her question, not looking at her anymore.

"Yeah. my arm got a minor infection from the water, I nearly reopened the wound to my side, and my back was less than minor."

"What about your chest?" she almost instantly blurted that out, remembering the red flash that had sent him out of the door.

"Body armor. was only a pistol shot. i… uh… got knocked out when I hit the water." She noticed his hesitation, suddenly very curious as to why he did. she didn't know how, but she thought he had almost panicked at the thought of whatever the truth was.

"and Miyu?" he nodded, still not looking at her.

"She's fine, same as all of the other prisoners. No injuries sustained in the escape. Seems most of the staff evaced via submersible shuttlecraft, or was too busy trying to fight off AJ to worry about escaping prisoners. How did you know Krystal was even there? Or how to find her for that matter?" he finally looked at her again as he spoke his question.

"I'm….. Really not sure how. I heard a voice and I started seeing pictures…. Almost as if I had walked the halls myself." Surprisingly enough, he simply nodded, instantly accepting that.

"Makes sense. She is a telepath. Even in her weakened state, she probably knew we were coming once I dropped into atmo. Uh, Krystal, that is. Never actually met her till now but, she was a member of Star Fox until about a year ago. one of the few Cerinians to leave their planet, actually." She made an 'oh' expression with her mouth, having heard stories of Cerinia. It was one of several planets not in the Lylat system, such as Papetoon, among others, that were in their very own solar systems. Cerinia was a heavily talked about subject in her astronomic class, due to the fact that it was the only known planet to be inhabited by an almost entirely telepathic population. It's wildlife was also almost alien to even the Lylat races, aside from the blue hued vulpines and lupines that made up it's simple yet lavish population. They had never even developed vehicles aside from push carts, their telepathy allowing them to calm and tame animals for almost all of their lively hoods, even being able to fly between the world's villages and towns. The little advanced technology created by them was strange to the general populace, given it was all telepathic in nature, not even requiring any kind of batteries or power source to function. Oddly enough, they found normal technology to be like whichcraft and magic, telepathic tech being such a normal aspect of their lives. As such, very few had ever earned the right to land on Cerinia, a very small research outpost being located in the capital, the cerinians placing a very strict policy on whom they allowed to leave that building's small space port.

"Oh…. So what happens now." he grunted, looking away from her as she asked her question.

"You get cleared by ROB, and go stay in a cabin as far away from me here in the med bay as you possibly can until this three day journey is done. Then you go home and pretend that you know none of this, and that it was simply a run of the mill sex trafficking ring that abducted you that we annihilated. And we go back to be pretending to be friends." She sighed at his bitter words, leaning back into the bed again.

"Okay."

* * *

I stared up at the scaffolding set up around my MICs, still curious about why Fox insisted that I do it's maintenance on Corneria, on top of the parking structure for my apartment building no less. We had only been on Corneria for a few days, but the thing had already been swarmed almost daily by reporters and civilians, trying to snag an interview from Star Fox's newest member, or get a look at the MICS itself. MICS units were something only humanity had created, Cornerian Mechanized units being primarily walkers and tanks, acting more like piloted ground vehicles with permanently mounted weaponry, compared to the walking infantry tank that the MICS was. So, for Cornerian military enthusiasts, it was quite the sight. The Star Fox emblem on it's shoulders just drew in a bigger crowd. But today, much to my relief, it was quiet, finally allowing me to start repairs on the damaged parts. Some plasma fire had gotten through the weakened shielding on the mechs left side, where the shield capacitors had been damaged on Mecbeth, so I had to fix those problems. Also, the engine system slippy and I rigged to it's feet was still installed, the G-diffusers, literally Arwing parts repurposed, were set off the sides of the feet, sticking up vertically and back to store out of the way of the arms. Two smaller G-diffusers slippy had built himself were attached as well, in front of the larger two so they would fold down in front of the legs, the gravity field emitters set to face downward, just like the larger back two. the system had oddly been back heavy, likely due to the power core's location behind the pilot. Oddly enough, the stabilizers were almost as long as the mech was tall, but they had worked, better than we had expected actually. part of the tasks I had set myself for the next few days until school started back up was to remove the engines for storage, but it was frankly low on my list of priority's. I had actually kinda liked being able to actually fly. I was also glad to be no longer wearing a sling, and really wanted to get to work on this. I quickly loaded up a tool kit on a field maintenance cart, essentially a hovering tool box, connected to a generator by a thick power cable, as well as having a set of gravity based mag-grapples. Essentially four small disks I could attach to machinery or armor that was too heavy to handle by hand, a command system on the cart allowing me to easily strip parts off the mech. Within minutes, I had most of the damaged armor pieces off, sighing at the extensive damage to the sensitive systems beneath. It was likely going to be weeks of work to get it back up to full operational condition.

"Hey! Chris!" I glanced down the scaffolding at the familiar shouted voice, recognizing Callie and oddly enough, Maria, down below me. "Do you have a minute to talk?!" Callie shouted again and I sighed, attempting to wipe the hydraulic grease and armor protectant off my hands before slipping back down the scaffolding. When I got down, both of the girls were staring up at the massive frame of the MICS, mouths hanging open.

"Did you two need something Callie? I got a lot of work to do on this thing." She smiled to me, finally looking back at me. Her smile was beyond contagious, even making my usually grim self want to smile. Of course the wagging went a long way in that regard as well.

"Not really, just wanted to check on you. what all do you need to do?" I sighed, glancing up at the bare arm above me.

"Replace five shield capacitors, figure out what's wrong with the damage sensors in the left arm, check the pressure sensors in the left hand, make sure the thermal damage didn't effect them, repair the hydraulic systems and magnetic suspension system for the fine motor control systems, scrape carbon scoring off the armor, and re-apply the RADAR reflective paint. There's also a million and one other sub-systems I have to double and triple check for damage. Once that's done, I have to check and test the inertial compensators, as well as the G-Diffusion stabilizers for the flight boosters, build a new tech manual for the boosters, remove them from the mech and prep them for storage, and that's on top of the regular post combat checks I normally run. It's probably going to take weeks, especially after school starts back up." I shrugged as I continued to look over the mech, still trying to think of anything else I might have missed.

"Wow…. You uh, really know your stuff!" I glanced at callie, easily seeing her sheepish yet unashamed grin as she continued. "As for me, all of that just went right over my head." she clearly had absolutely no shame in that, almost to the point of being proud of it in fact. Maria on the other hand was blushing furiously.

"I understood some of it, from physics class. I don't think I would be much help though….." Maria seemed almost sad to say that, myself finally turning my full attention on them.

"It's fine. normal day at the office for me." I shrugged as I spoke, my hands on my hips.

"So you really pilot this thing? I have to admit, that is so cool! Don't these things have this really difficult neural link technology?" I smirked at Maria's question, instantly answering.

"On third, fourth, and fifth gen models, yes. But mine is a heavily modified M-C-S four, so it's a late second generation. Controls are fully manual with an artificial intelligence for tactical assistance." Maria seemed to shrivel up as I directly spoke to her, sheepishly letting out a quiet 'Oh'.

"What about you? how are your injuries healing?" I shrugged at Callie's question, hoping they wouldn't keep this interrogation of theirs going much longer as I rubbed the bandages on my arm.

"Fine. nothing I can't handle." Honestly, that was just me being optimistic. All of the injuries hurt like hell. But pain and I had come to an agreement of sorts long ago. I noticed the small flicker of concern cross Callie's muzzle, Maria straight up frowning.

"Are you in pain right now!?" Maria looked extremely concerned, for reasons beyond my comprehension.

"It's fine. I can handle it." she frowned even more, reaching out almost as if she wanted to touch me, but stopped.

"It's not fine! why don't you take some painkillers or something?!" I sighed, unable to stop the frown on my face, several memories coming to mind.

"I don't use painkillers unless it is absolutely necessary. It clouds your thinking. And it's gotten people killed before." She made another quiet 'Oh', the three of us falling silent. Callie finally broke the silence, trying to sound cheery

"Well, school starts next week, so try to get some rest! Let yourself heal, okay!?" Callie was already starting to walk away as she spoke, Maria staying put.

"Callie, I'll catch you later, okay?" Callie just smiled and nodded, disappearing down the stairwell as Maria spoke, instantly turning to me, seeming to be blushing even more. "Can I help you, please?" I stared at her, utterly confused. _Why would she have any desire to help me, I've barely even talked to her before now?_

"This is pretty delicate work I have to do. I don't need someone in my way." I tried to say that softly, but despite that, I seemed to have sounded harsh to her, her face falling as she stared at the ground, shuffling her feet.

"I just want to give back… you've saved my life once, and you've done so much for Samantha, I'd feel bad if I didn't help you somehow. I know my tools, and I can at least hold a light for you or…. Something." I sighed, really wanting to tell her no, but at the same time, she was so crestfallen the first time that I didn't want to tell the girl no twice.

"Alright, fine. just… try to stay out of my way, and don't get under any of the parts. The high-density armor plates weigh damn near two tons a piece." She seemed to instantly brighten up, smiling at me. It seemed to go perfectly with her shoulder length hair, her brown eyes seeming almost warm now. _well, back to it I guess_.

* * *

Maria watched as Chris continued to work, mostly controlling his tool cart for him. neither of them had said a word beyond what was needed as they worked, something that kinda depressed Maria if she was being honest with herself. Of course, it would probably help if she had some idea as to what to say to him.

"Um, Chris?" he glanced over at her from where he was working on scrapping a fused power cable off part of the chassis as she spoke, glancing once at how she was sitting, feet dangling off the scaffolding and facing out toward the city.

"Yes?" his one glance is all she got from him as he almost instantly started scrapping again.

"You're from Colorado too, right?" she saw him freeze, a small sigh slipping out before letting his arms drop away from the mech's arm.

"Yeah. only left a year ago. what about you?" she gulped having expected him to ask that, but hoped he wouldn't.

"Two years ago." the pair fell silent, but she was shocked when he set the tool down, dropping beside her on the scaffolding.

"How rough was it for you?" she sighed, looking out over the city.

"Not much worse than the average. Spent most of the war drifting from refugee camp to refugee camp. I…. lost my younger sister when one of the camps was attacked, four years ago." he glanced at her, looking like he was about to ask more from her, but he remained silent.

"I lost my father in the first six months of the war. Spent three years drifting between camps with my mother and sister. UEG attacked, and I was forced to watch as they killed my mother and sister. I cracked and tackled one, got his forty five, and started fighting back. In the end, I was knocked out. Spent another year just wandering. People would take me in, and then something would happen, and they would die, or leave, or we'd end up separated. I cant remember exact dates, but I ended up joining a resistance cell. Until they chose to target a refugee camp a year ago. then I left them, and fought them." Maria just silently listened, not realizing how much him saying this was actually worth, but knowing how much just listening could be worth to someone. She saw a tear slip down his cheek, almost shocked to see it. "Anyway. I think that's all the work we should do today. Thanks for the help." She glanced at her phone, realizing it was nearly seven at night.

"Oh no, I need to get home! Mom is probably worried sick!" she slipped onto her feet, about to leave when he grabbed her hand, stopping her.

"Why don't you stay awhile? Miyu cooks some great food, and I doubt she would mind if you stopped in. plus, I kinda owe you. you probably cut two weeks off my repair time today." She smiled and blushed, having never heard him ask for someone to spend anytime with him. _Is it because we both lived in Colorado?_ She couldn't help that thought as it slipped out. _Or does he remember?_ She studied his face for several seconds, his unwavering and determined eyes, so different from how he had been his first few weeks at the school, but just as she remembered them.

"I'm sorry, not today. Thank you for the offer though. Do you want me to swing by tomorrow, and help you some more?" he nodded, a very small smile on his face.

"Yeah. that would be nice, you are actually more help than slippy at times, and he helped rebuild this thing." She blushed as she saw his smile, having not seen him smile before now. it was incredible what such a small thing could do for a person, that simple smiling changing his eternally grim features completely around.

"well, um, I'll see you tomorrow I guess. Get some rest, okay?!" he nodded as she climbed down the ladder, moving into the stairwell down to the ground, stopping for a minute as she slumped against the wall, shaking as memories tried to force their way to the forefront of her mind. "I hope it really is him…" she whispered that to herself before pushing off the wall and continuing down the stairs once more.

* * *

Miyu glanced up from the table as Chris walked back in, about to say hi to him when she saw his face. He looked almost shocked, something she had never seen in him.

"Hey, something up?" he glanced at her and shook his head, Miyu instantly launching to her feet and stopping him before he could move further.

"Bullshit. You are always pickle calm, and you definitely are not right now." he looked at her, and shockingly enough, smiled.

"Just…. Ran into someone I never would have thought I'd see again." She watched him sit down at the table, right behind the plate she set out for him. she watched as he slowly chewed the food, doubting he even tasted it. he seemed completely lost in his thoughts.

"Good, or bad?" she barely managed to work up the courage to ask him that.

"I… Don't know. I kinda doubt she even remembers me. We never exchanged names and honestly, I only met her briefly so….." he took another shaky breath, finally looking at her. "And I asked her to come eat with us, but she said no…" Miyu simply listened curiously until he suddenly straightened up, his face steeling once more. "It's nothing though." As soon as he said that, he quickly finished his food, then grabbed his backpack, pulling out a textbook to study. She watched as he did that, suddenly very worried about him. _Who was it that he met?_

* * *

 _Four Years Prior_

 _Maria stared at the boy lying on her bed, a frown on her face. As far as she could tell, he was around her age of twelve, but was very thin. He had brown hair, several inches long, tangled, and matted together, and even with how bad the camp smelled, he smelled worse. His ripped and torn cargo pants and shirt patched in many places. There was also a scar on his cheek, red and new still despite having healed. he had been brought in a few hours ago by this refugee camps scavengers. Most refugee camps had to scavenge for supplies and food, the meager supply shipments given to them by the UEG barely fed a fifth of the camp._

 _"Where did you two find him again, Jessica?" Maria glanced up at the sound of her mother's voice, seeing her talking to the two scavengers that had found him. Jessica Garrick and Matthew Brown. The pair were both seventeen, and she never saw them apart, as far as she knew, they even slept in the same bed._

 _"He collapsed in the middle of the road. All he had were the clothes on his back and this." Jessica held out a handgun, the dark grey metal and wood handle looking both old and reliable._

 _"Why would someone so young be carrying a gun?" her mother was oddly quiet as she spoke, seeming to shrug it off. "Never the less, I'll take care of him for now. leave that here. I'm sure he'll explain why he has it. Maria, take Laura outside until dinner." She nodded, going over to where her younger sister was quietly playing with an old doll. She was barely seven, Maria just gently grabbing her hand and leading her outside._

 _"Can I go get my other doll?" Maria glanced down at her sister and smiled, instantly turning back around._

 _"Of course, come on." The building they were living in was an old apartment complex, now jam packed with people. She stepped back through the doors, following her sister through the lobby as they passed several people she knew. She was about to open the door to her family's room when everything suddenly went black. The next thing she became aware of, was a loud constant ring in her ears. When she finally managed to open her eyes, she could see the dying light of the day, even though she was supposed to be under three stories of building. there were massive columns of smoke drifting above her. she was instantly panicking, trying to find her sister amongst the rubble. She was shouting at the top of her lungs, but she couldn't hear her self. She heard several faint pops, a strange sensation washed over her with every pop, like a wave passing over her. the pops slowly became louder and clearer, transforming into bangs. Dozens of them. over and over. That's when she heard a faint voice, calling her name._

 _"Maria!" she perked up at the male voice, recognizing Matt's voice_

 _"Over here!" she tried to shout back, seeing him scramble over rubble to reach her._

 _"Come on! We have to go! Now!" he was clearly as terrified as she was. He had blood running down one side of his head, and as he looked up at her, his face completely paled._

 _"I-I cant leave! I have to find mother, and Laura!" he gingerly slipped down the rubble to her, pulling something from her hand."_

 _"You wont find them… we have to go." She looked down as he dropped whatever she had been holding, seeing herself covered in grey dust, to a point that she was grey. On the ground, at her feet, was a severed forearm, a bracelet her sister always wore on it's wrist. She went wide eyed and tried to scramble away, but found herself puking onto the rubble. She felt hands on her shoulder, barely noticing she was crying. "Come on, we need to go!" she shoved him off, trying to dig into the rubble._

 _"Mother!" he tried to pull her away, but she shoved him off and kept trying to dig. There was a much louder bang, preceded by a whipping crack almost instantaneously, dust being blasted skyward just feet from her._

 _"Damn it, I missed the rats." She heard a shrill laugh, looking behind herself to see a pair of UEG soldiers, their blue helmets and brown and tan splotch camo unmistakable as one of the less funded units. Maria's terror soared to new heights as Matt tried to place himself between her and the two soldiers, only for a bang to ring out. She watched as one of them clutched at his throat, the second panicking and slipping, tumbling down the pile of rubble toward them. the soldier tried to fight too his feet, only for a second bang to ring out, drawing Maria's attention to the boy that had been on her bed, the handgun found with him in his hand, the slide locked back. He tucked it away before crawling back into the hole in the rubble he likely created, dragging the unconscious form of her mother out behind him._

 _"Who are you dude?" he glanced up, panting. He was clearly barely able to move, and yet, he had dragged her mother from the rubble, precisely shot two fully armored soldiers, and was now stripping the rifle off one. When he looked at them, his steel colored eyes were cold, almost lifeless. But there was a kind of silent determination in his eyes that was almost unsettling to see._

 _"Doesn't matter. They probably have this place surrounded, which means, if you want to live, you have to fight." He quickly removed the magazine from the bulky rifle, it almost swamping him, but he seemed to know exactly how to use it, slipping the magazine right back into place and grabbing several more, including several large bulbous slugs off the dead soldier. He climbed his way up the rubble, bringing the weapon up and looking through it's scope to look around the area. Matt gave her a silent command to stay with her mother, crawling up the rubble with him, but not all the way as the boy slipped back down a short way. "Three MICS, least a hundred soldiers. Encircling the area. We'll have to kill a MICS to get clear."_

 _"Kid, the hell are you talking about!? You cant fight a mecha with an assault rifle!" the kid just stared at him for a second, before suddenly scrambling up the rubble again._

 _"Yes you can. The optical sensors on older models are weak, easy to penetrate with rifle rounds, joints can be broken with grenades. Round everyone up and follow me, I'll clear the way!" he shouted that as he disappeared over the rubble, Maria scrambling up the rubble to watch as he picked his way across the cratered landscape, Maria unable to even recognize anything anymore. She watched the boy pick his way past several soldiers, none of them noticing the dust covered kid. He laid down in the rubble aiming up at the giant walking machine that was moving through the area. She went wide as he started firing, not seeing any effect on the mecha. It instantly turned toward him, aiming it's massive gun toward him. but he was already moving, the heavy rounds casting dirt and rock into the air in massive plumes. The infantry reacted but didn't seem to care. An explosion rocked the mecha, the dust clearing to show one of it's arms falling off. It tried to one hand it's weapon, sending more dirt and rocks into the air. But she could still see the boy, running as he fiddled with the weapon. Now the infantry were starting to pay attention. But it was already too late, another explosion ripping the leg off the mecha. Something shot away from it, out it's back just before it exploded. The infantry were staring at the destroyed mecha, weapons slack. That's when tremendous bangs began beside her, Matt totting a rifle now. before long, he grabbed her and dragged her after him, Jessica carrying Maria's mother. She was still picking her way down the slope when she suddenly heard a shout, looking toward it to see that Kid, somehow having picked his way back to them. he slammed into her, just as a gunshot went off. After they hit the ground, he rolled over and fired back, but Maria's eyes were fixed to the spot of red on his shirt, knowing he had been shot just then to save her. but despite that, despite his physical weakness, despite everything, he stood up, bleeding from his chest, only to pull her to her feet and keep her moving as he started running. "Everyone, Follow me!" she was staring at him, wide eyed. His eyes were still cold, but after she had seen what he had just done, knowing how injured he was, it made her want to fight alongside him._


	13. Chapter 13

Fox glanced up as someone knocked on the door, having been busy eating one of Miyu's wonderful breakfasts. It was actually shocking how good she was at anything she put her mind to, just one of those people that everything came naturally too. he quickly stood and moved to the door, opening it immediately to find a vaguely familiar human girl standing on the otherside.

"Um, hi, is Chris around?" she was very quiet, clearly very nervous about talking to a stranger.

"And I don't believe I've met you before….." she blushed, her eyes flicking around like crazy.

"Oh! I-I'm one of his friends from school, we were going too…." her voice dropped off as her face seemed to light up, her eyes fixed on something behind Fox.

"Oh, Hey Maria, didn't expect you to be here so early." Fox looked back to see Chris sticking his still wet head out from the bedroom, and oddly enough smiling. "Come on in, I'll just be a minute."

"O-Oh, Okay!" Fox stepped aside, letting her inside as he returned to his food, seeing Miyu's shocked expression. Of course, Fox was hiding his own shock, Chris smiling being one of the rarest occurrences he had ever seen. It was about as common as a supernova, which Fox was one of the few who had actually seen one happen, with his own eyes. She stood in the hallway, just at the opening to the kitchen and dining area, nervously kneading her hands.

"You seem a little nervous miss?" she nearly jumped out of her skin as Fox spoke, earning a chuckle for her reaction.

"Do i?!" Fox nodded at her high pitched question, trying to suppress a laugh. "Oh…. I guess I am a little nervous. I mean, aren't we all when we meet someone we haven't seen in a while?" One of Fox's eyebrows hit sky, curious as to what she meant by that, but he didn't get the chance to ask.

"Let's go Maria!" she seemed to brighten up again, instantly disappearing down the hall.

"so that's who he was talking about. I wonder how they know each other?" Miyu spoke as soon as the door had shut, Fox spinning in his seat to face her.

"Oh? Do tell Miyu?" she just shrugged to him from the couch, seemingly staring at the TV set, but he saw the slight shift in her body as she likely stared at the floor.

"Oh, he came in last night looking all shaken up, said he met someone he used to know." Fox grunted, suddenly curious himself. But he shrugged it away, knowing that unless Chris decided that they needed to know, he would keep whatever mysterious way he knew this girl to himself.

* * *

Maria quietly followed Chris back up the ladder for the scaffolding, raising an eyebrow at him as he simply sat down on the edge instead of picking up where he left off yesterday. Curious, she sat down beside him, dangling her feet off as well. She had absolutely no idea what to say to him, but she oddly found herself content just sitting there with him.

"How's your mother doing?" she startled as he spoke, almost slipping off the scaffolding. Not that he noticed, given he was just staring off at the city.

"Sh-She's doing fine." he looked at her and smiled as she spoke, his eyes not as cold as they usually seemed to be.

"Good. And….. I'm sorry I couldn't help your sister too." her heart skipped several beats before it began pounding away in her chest, her eye's wide, mouth hanging open.

"Yo-You r-remember?" she barely managed to whisper that, Chris looking away and letting a small sigh slip out before he gently nodded.

"I didn't recognize you at first. But then I saw the bracelet on your wrist…" she glanced down, unable to keep a frown off her face. The bracelet in question was a simple white and thin piece of ceramic that had leather strings to tie it down, and a small bird shape burned into it. it had been her younger sister's, one of the people finding it while they searched the ruined camp for survivors. He had been in the room, recovering from his injuries when Matthew had given it too her. "… And well… I'm glad you are still alive." She smiled to him as warmly as she could manage, part of her wanting to hug him right now, but knowing he likely wouldn't like that.

"You left with a lot of the others to start fighting back right? Are they still alive?" he shook his head, a tear slipping down his cheek.

"Most of them were dead in a year. Jess and Matt lasted longer but…. Matt died two years ago. killed during a botched ambush of ours, and Jess….. Jess began attacking civilians…. i… I had to kill her." he looked away as he spoke, almost as if he was ashamed of all of that. She gently wrapped an arm over his shoulder, pulling him into a loose half hug. It almost shocked her when he returned it, wrapping both of his arms around her. she sighed, unable to help the small smile that slipped onto her face, even though he was now crying into her shoulder. She gently wrapped her other arm around him, instinctively making a gentle cooing noise, which seemed to actually help calm him some. "I really am just a murdering psychopath, aren't I? I killed all of my friends….."

"You're not." Her saying that only seemed to make his crying worse. Which caused her to sigh, her smile fading. "Really. You saved our lives the other day, and you try so hard to protect Sam. You cant just be a psychopath." He remained silent after she spoke, Maria not knowing what to do or say, instead just returning to the cooing noise she had been making a moment ago.

"Well… in any case, we should get to work. This thing isn't going to fix itself after all." He gently pushed her off as he said that, but he made no move to get up from sitting on the edge of the scaffolding, simply staring off into the distance.

"Can't we just sit and talk for a while? It would be really nice to actually get to know you a little, ya know?" he glanced at her and nodded, no traces of his earlier crying even visible anymore, having been wiped away.

* * *

Samantha couldn't help but smile as she walked toward the bus stop, happy to finally be going to school again. It had been almost two weeks since she had gotten back from Zoness, and shockingly enough, she felt a lot better than she had been since the first kidnapping. She couldn't place why, but she was simply calmer about the whole affair, it even unsettling her mother. But she didn't care. All she cared about, was that there was only three more weeks of school, finals, and then it was going to be winter break. She glanced up and nearly froze as she saw everyone at the bus stop crowding around two individuals, an orange vulpine and a blue one, both extremely familiar to her. Chris was standing across the street from the rabble, just quietly watching, Callie oddly enough, standing with him. she instantly made a beeline for the two of them, shocked when the female vulpine broke away from the crowd, trotting straight for her.

"Samantha! May I speak with you for a moment!?" Samantha stopped and nodded, staring at the gorgeous Cerinian, who was being eyeballed by virtually every male in the area, Fox especially. Of course, her outfit was quite eye grabbing, a simple open sided dress, more like a single rectangular piece of cloth, held to her waist by a gold chain, a gem as large as a flat baseball resting on her forehead. and she definitely wasn't wearing a bra or underwear, just that single piece of silky cloth. she was also clearly much healthier than she had been, although she was still painfully thin. She stopped upon reaching Samantha, smiling warmly to her. "I wanted to know if you would be willing to meet me after school today? There are some things I would like to discuss with you?"

"I…. Well, I'd have to ask Mom and make sure she's okay with it, but sure!" Samantha had spoken to Krystal several times already, and quite frankly, really liked talking to her. she was incredibly kind and gentle, and spontaneous to top it all off.

"That's fine. and if there's a better time then let me know, okay?" Krystal glanced behind her as she spoke, rolling her eyes at something behind her. best as Samantha could tell, Fox had been staring at her rear since she had walked away from him. and Krystal's glance back instantly made him look away, nervously scratching the back of his head to try and play the action off. "shesh, it's as if he's forgotten I'm a telepath. Testosterone driven moron!"

"Well, aren't most guys that way?" Samantha and Krystal laughed together at that.

"Very true. I will see you later today then! Take care!" Samantha nodded and smiled as she returned Krystal's friendly wave goodbye, walking over to where Callie was quietly chatting with Chris immediately after. As she approached, she managed to overhear some of their conversation.

"So you are really that worried about finals? You've been doing really well, I'm sure you'll get by fine." he seemed to shrug, looking about as unsure as he normally did.

"yeah, maybe… Sam." He simply nodded in greeting to samantha, almost as if she was an after thought.

"Chris. Are you healing well?" she tried to smile as she spoke, but his almost glare she received in return made her immediately regret it.

"I'm fine." almost as soon as he spoke, he stalked a few meters away, facing away from them.

"C-Chris?" he ignored her, his sudden coldness toward her startling her.

"Did something happen I don't know about?"

Samantha sighed as Callie spoke, instinctively thinking back to her last conversation with him. he hadn't said a word since they had been in the medical bay. "I…." she really didn't know how to respond. She wanted to say no, but she couldn't. she learned a lot about how he really felt about her. then she remembered how he said she needed to act like nothing happened. "No. nothing. Maybe he just finally realized that I don't like him at all." She mentally kicked herself, having actually been wanting to talk to him more. Something about him just… intrigued her somehow. She couldn't quite place it though, nor was she particularly happy that she felt that way, but she wasn't going to deny it. the bus arrived, making for a perfect distraction. "Come on, bus is here. Chris!" she spoke a little louder to him to get his attention, given he was facing the other way. She raised an eyebrow at him, shocked that he still wouldn't respond. Callie walked over to him, him startling slightly when she touched his shoulder.

"Chris, the bus is here." He glanced between her and the bus and nodded.

"Oh, thanks Callie." Samantha watched him curiously as they loaded the bus, noticing him mess with his ears a few times, an almost pained expression on his face.

* * *

Fox watched as the bus pulled away, finally glad to not be being harassed by the students anymore. Although the fight on Zoness was kept top secret, the fight on mecbeth just a couple weeks after the school incident had thrown Star Fox all over the headlines. He was actually shocked that they were leaving Chris alone for the most part. Maybe most thought he didn't take part in the second mission.

"So Krystal…. Are you… well…." He couldn't believe just how nervous about just asking her to take a walk with him made him.

"Yes, I'll go for a walk with you. It would be nice to stretch my legs a little." Her voice was accompanied by a gentle smile, startling Fox for a moment. She had spent most of the last two weeks cooped up in a hospital, recovering from her time in captivity. She still looked very weak to Fox, but Fox knew her well enough by now to know how adventurous of a person she was. Which meant she absolutely hated being stuck in one place for too long.

"Okay, there's a mall not far from here, maybe two miles, think you are up for that?" she nodded and Fox started walking, taking a much slower pace than he normally would, both because he wanted as much time as he could get to talk to her, and he didn't want to push her too hard. Oddly enough though, both of them remained silent for what felt like an eternity, Fox having no idea what to talk about. Little did he know, Krystal was having a similar dilemma herself. "Oh, um, Krystal, you still haven't explained why you want to talk to Samantha?"

She glanced at him as he spoke, a small sly smirk appearing on her muzzle, batting his leg with her tail. That last motion alone was enough to send his male brain reeling. Of course, he knew that she intended that effect, Krystal having been willing to pick on him from the moment they met, in her own playful way. "Oh, you would just love to know, wouldn't you?" Fox tried to glare at her, only earning himself an amused chuckle and his own shoulders slumping. "There is a reason, but I'm not so sure of it myself. My father would know better. Actually, it may not be a bad idea to have her meet father." Krystal was the daughter of the Cerinian High Leader, and first went off world when she was kidnapped by Andross. Fox ended up rescuing her off the primitive world of Sauria, returning her to Cerinia, and that being the only reason his ship was still allowed in orbit. Most ships were not allowed in Cerinia orbit.

After her rescue, she pleaded with her father to let her tag along with the Star Fox team, to learn more about the galaxy at large and bring that information home. It didn't take long after that for a very strong romantic relationship to flare up between herself and Fox, spanning almost two years. But in the end, it collapsed, and those memories caused a sigh to slip out of Fox's muzzle.

"And Fox? I'm sorry about how I reacted a year ago… I shouldn't have yelled at you, or left like that. I'm still angry about what you said but… i truly do want to apologize for my actions. They were uncalled for." Fox glanced at her and sighed again. It was very clear to him that she was being sincere, all of her fur looking almost deflated, even her whiskers drooping down. In his personal opinion, her actions had always been justified, he had been being extremely selfish at the time. The only thing he really wanted to do is take back what he said, but it was already far too late for that.

"It's fine Krys. Don't worry about it." she frowned as she watched him for a second before letting a small sigh slip out of her, her tail and whisker's drooping more than they already had been. "Friends?" Fox suddenly stopped as he spoke, holding his hand out to her, Krystal startling at the sudden action. But she still smiled to him, accepting the handshake he was holding out for her. just that simple motion perked her up considerably, just knowing he did that doing the same for him.

"Always Fox." She had a broad smile on her face as she spoke, matching Fox's own. Not a force in the world could have stopped that grin Fox had on his face. Or so Fox thought, until he heard a voice call out his name from afar.

"Fox!? Is that you!?" he could have picked Fara's angry voice out of a crowded sports festival, his smile disappearing faster than it had come.

"What do you want Fara?" Fox closed his eye's for a moment as he spoke, wanting nothing more than to scream to himself.

"I've been trying to call you for weeks now! what happened to that date you were supposed to meet me for!?" she had crossed the street while Fox's eyes were closed, her sudden proximity causing him to nervously scratched the back of his head, having blocked her number in his communicator years ago. this was not a conversation he wanted to have with her, especially not in front of Krystal.

"I had no desire to go on a date with you in the first place Fara. So no, I didn't show up, and I blocked you years ago. that answer you're questions?" he didn't bother waiting for a response from her, just turning toward the mall and stalking away.

"Hmph, so this is that whore your mother said you're infatuated with." Fox's fists instantly clenched as Fara spat that vehement statement at them. if Fara wasn't a woman, she would have just been cold cocked, and likely knocked out just for saying that to him, much less doing so with Krystal right next to him. he felt Krystal's presence in his mind for the barest trace of a second, causing him to almost instantly calm down.

"I do not believe we have met Miss. My name is Krystal." Shockingly enough, Krystal had spun around and faced Fara with a smile, her hand outstretched. Which Fara just glared at and walked past, straight toward Fox now.

"Piss off cunt. Fox, what the hell do you see in h-" Fara didn't get the chance to finish speaking as Fox was already rounding on her.

"If you ever speak to Krystal like that again, I swear to whatever deity you believe in, I will smash your muzzle in Fara!" Fox couldn't stop his enraged shout, almost instantly regretting it. he had absolutely no desire to be this angry in front of Krystal, especially not at a woman. "And don't you dare follow us." Fox could see the startled expression on Fara's face, his angry shout already bringing tears to her eyes. _Fuck, I really should not have done that_. He shook his head and stomped away, just trying to put the harsh exchange behind him. Krystal didn't hesitate in following, but Fara stayed in place, much to Fox's relief.

"That was... Harsh of you. I've never seen you that angry with someone before."

Fox couldn't bring himself to look at Krystal as he sighed, just focusing on the sidewalk in front of him. "She ruined four of my past relationships and has always tried to control every aspect of my life, and I'm tired of it. So I'm sorry you had to see that." Krystal let out a small sigh after Fox finished, her eye's dropping to the pavement.

"Have you ever thought of telling her that? Maybe she hasn't realized what she's been doing to you." he grunted, knowing exactly why Krystal had suggested that.

"you read her mind, didn't you?"

"Well, yes…. It was hard not to Fox." Fox let out a sigh as he stopped, looking back at where Fara was behind them. Fara had slumped to the ground, now sobbing into her hands.

"Maybe someday. Just… not today." With that, Fox continued down the street, completely  
ignoring the crying woman behind him, and focusing his efforts on forgetting her as Krystal followed him.

* * *

Samantha wandered back to her temporary classroom, having gotten turned around trying to find it. She and Callie had been talking since they got off the bus, not about anything really important or particular. She had barely even noticed that Chris had moved off without them, shocking Samantha when she found him already in their new classroom, along with her other close friends. Oddly, Chris was not back in the corner, but up near the front of the room, sitting beside Maria, and talking to her. and to add to the list he had already started that day of shocking changes in him, he was smiling to her. _When did they even start talking?_ Samantha tried to shrug it off, moving to the empty seat behind Maria, catching on to what they were talking about as she saw the ear bud in Chris's ear.

"Blow me away by Breaking Benjamin." The other ear bud was in Maria's ear, who was flicking through her phone's music.

"Alright, what about this song?" she listened in for a second, waiting to see what response he gave Maria.

"Wheel in the Sky, Journey. Come on, find a hard one." He chuckled as he spoke, Maria now much more feverously searching for another song.

"You will not guess this one!" he just smirked listening to whatever she selected.

"Easy, heartbreak girl by five seconds of summer." Maria visibly groaned as he reached over and yanked the headphone jack from her phone, plugging it into his. She seemed to listen for a while, smiling as she subconsciously moved to whatever it was she was listening too.

"What is this?" he smirked, to her, barely even glancing at Samantha as she sat down.

"Love somebody by Maroon Five." The bell rang after he said that, both of them frowning as Maria put her ear buds away. as soon as roll call was done, Samantha leaned forward and tapped Maria's shoulder, to which she inconspicuously canted her head back too.

"When did you two start being all buddy buddy?" Maria just shrugged at sam's question, quietly responding.

"Friday last week." Samantha stared at her for a minute, about to say something when the teacher started passing out quizzes to the class, a sigh slipping out of her mouth. She barely even payed attention to her surroundings over the next few hours, just focusing on the quizzes they were getting. Every single teacher they had seemed to have one for them. the only thing she had managed to notice so far was that when Chris would finish a quiz, he would immediately begin studying his textbooks again. By the time the lunch bell rang, Samantha was exhausted.

"Hey Chris… d-do you want to go get lunch together?" Samantha glanced up at the sound of Maria's timid voice, even more shocked that chris didn't respond. Hell, he was still nose deep in a text book. "C-Chris?" he still didn't even twitch, Maria gently tapping his shoulder. He jumped at that, so forcefully that he actually knocked his desk and seat over, himself slamming to the floor with them. Maria let out a startled shout, the crash of the desk silencing the class as a whole. "C-C-Chris!? What's wrong!?"

"No no, no no, NO! not again….. no….." he seemed to be scratching at his ears as he began to panic, his voice sounding utterly terrified. He quickly dislodged himself from the desk, backpedaling across the floor until he hit the solid wall, his eye's flicking around the room like it was on fire. Maria and Samantha were near instantly out of their chairs, rushing to his side, Samantha slowing when she saw him shying away from them.


	14. Chapter 14

**So as i post this chapter, i went through and updated all of the previous chapters. i did a fair bit of editing and fixed alot, as well as changing some minor things, and added some small amounts of description**

* * *

I couldn't help but feel like something was off as I looked over my astronomy textbook, having been unable to shake a dull ring out of my ears all day. It was starting to get to the point that I was going to have to talk to Slippy about it. I was so focused on my textbook that I didn't even notice the classroom around me falling oddly silent. So when I felt a light tap on my shoulder, my heart damn near stopped, startling me so badly that I literally nocked my entire desk over. That's when I realized the utter silence the room had fallen into, seeing Maria's mouth move, but no words coming out. This silence was something indescribable, so total and absolute that it was like a pressure constantly pushing inward, crushing more and more. And to me, it was beyond terrifying, having lived so long relying on all of my senses to survive, losing one of the most useful was beyond debilitating. When I unconsciously stuttered something out, I couldn't even understand what it was, the only thing even close to a sound being an annoyingly dull ring. _No! not again! i…. I can't….._ my thoughts my thoughts were running absolutely wild as that inescapable mass of nothing seemed to press harder and harder, watching as Maria moved toward me, too panicked to realize what she was trying to do. I and started backpedaling away from them as fast as I could until I hit something solid, but they just followed. I could see people's mouths moving, but still, nothing breached the void I now found myself in. Maria quickly held my attention again as she crouched in front of me, tentatively holding her hand out toward me, as if she was trying to touch me. I could see her mouth moving as she did so, nearly batting her hand away as I tried to move further away again.

 _"Hey, hey! Chris, calm down, it's okay!"_ I froze as a voice managed to penetrate the incessant ringing, my eye's going wide. As relieving as it had been in the single instant I heard it, it was gone too fast for me to even realize who it was, that oppressive silence snuffing it right out, to the point that I thought I had imagined it.

"Wh-Who sa-said th-at!" I wasn't even sure if I had managed to actually say that, shaking beyond what I even thought I was capable of as my eyes started to rapidly search the room, trying to locate the source of the voice. Maria was clearly trying to say something again, an extremely worried and confused expression on her face. She tried to reach for me again and I shrieked, sliding down the wall and away from her. "No! Do-don't touch me!"

 _"I don't think he can hear us Maria."_ I froze again as I heard the voice again, this time seeing Samantha's mouth move alongside it. I couldn't even think to comprehend what was going on, barely able to register the rate in which my heart was beating. Having heard it a second time, I could not mistake it for anyone else's voice. She had always had a soft voice, and yet clearly heard despite that.

"I… can hear you?!" my eye's were fixed on Samantha, seeing her glance at Maria, the movement of Maria's mouth evident in the corner of my vision, but Maria's voice still never reached me.

 _"I don't know. Chris, can you understand me?"_ I shakily nodded as I stared at her deep blue eyes, oddly finding them calming in a way, but it barely scratched the surface of the terror I was still feeling. _"What's wrong Chris? You're scaring us!"_

"I-I can't hear! Anything I… How can I hear you!?" she blinked several times after I spoke, myself still unsure if I had actually said that, completely unable to hear my own words. Samantha tried to reach out to me this time, myself instinctively trying to shy away again.

 _"It's okay Chris, just calm down. breath. We'll figure this out."_ I blinked several times, frozen in place as I stared at the two of them, barely noticing the rest of the class all staring at me. Every muscle in my body tensed up when I felt Samantha's hand touch my knee, but I tried to not panic. After a few seconds, I started to relax again, Samantha's touch seeming to somehow calm me. But even with that strange calming effect she was having, I was completely unable to stop trembling. I felt another hand gently grab my own, nearly jumping out of my skin at the sudden touch, seeing Maria's arm instantly retreat from me. My terror slipped away for the barest trace of a moment as I looked at her face, the way her eye's were as wide as saucers, tears starting to visibly well up within them stopping me in my tracks. _Does she think she hurt me somehow?_ Her lips moved again, slowly, as if she was trying to be gentle with what she said, but I still had no idea what she was trying to say to me, feeling my heart rate start to accelerate again. _"Whoa, hey, she's just trying to help, it's okay, just breath."_ I heard Samantha's voice again, trying to do what she said, only just realizing that I had been hyperventilating for the past few minutes. I could feel the thick layer of sweat coating my body, my entire body feeling frigid as I continued to shake uncontrollably. Maria reached for me again, and I did everything I could to not shy away from her this time, unable to stop from clenching up when she gently grabbed my hand, feeling her fingers interlace with mine. I couldn't hear her still, but the way her lips moved, slowly and cautiously, as well as her furrowed brow and welled up eyes, she was doing everything she could to try and help me, likely as scared as I was about this. Her expression finally managed to allow me relax a little more. Something about feeling her surprisingly warm hand and the small weak smile her lips formed slowly eased most of the trembling, down to a mere tremor. But it did absolutely nothing for the cold, that only seeming to intensify. Nor did it alleviate that inescapable feeling of pressure from all directions the complete and utter silence was creating. _"I'm going to call Fox real quick, let him know what's going on. Chris, it's going to be okay, alright? Just breath, try to calm down, okay?"_ I shakily nodded again, barely managing to respond to her.

"I-I'm really c-cold right now." as I said that, Maria started gently rubbing my back, myself instantly relived by the action. Her warm hand running back and forth across my back at least dulled the edge on the cold piercing every inch of me, and finally eased the trembling, save an occasional brief tremor. Maria's mouth was still moving, as if she was trying to say something to me again, still just as gently as before. Whatever it was, she gave my hand a gentle squeeze as Samantha stood, pulling her phone from her pocket.

* * *

Samantha glanced down at Chris after she stood, unable to stop her heart from sinking when she did so. Despite how she personally felt about him, she had never seen him so terrified, not even when he had plasma bolts being shot at him. he was just one of those generally calm people, with the exception of social situations, in which he clearly just didn't know what to do with. _What's going on with him? this is actually really scary to see…_ Samantha couldn't help that thought, able to tell that this was nothing like his nervousness with people, whatever this was being something that terrified him to the core. And that was something she never wanted for anyone. But at least he seemed much calmer now, not constantly shaking as he had been, just an occasional small tremble. Samantha was actually shocked at how much of a positive effect Maria seemed to have on him, part of her even more curious as to what was between them. A small sigh slipped from her mouth as her attention returned to her phone, flicking through her contacts, dialing Fox's number as soon as she saw it, having to wait several seconds before he answered.

"Hey Sam, something up?" she tried to not look at chris as she focused on how to explain what was going on to Fox, taking a breath to try and settle herself. She couldn't help that her own muscles were quivering a little, able to feel the adrenaline seeping into her system.

"Fox, something is up with Chris. He started panicking a couple minutes ago and he keeps saying he can't hear us. I don't know what's going on with him or what to do…" she bit her lip as she got no response for several seconds, feeling a sort of unease settle over her that she simply wasn't used to feeling.

"Hmm. It's probably his hearing implant's. just try to keep him calm, knowing him he's probably going into shock, so if you have a blanket or something, see if you can wrap him in it. Krystal and I will be there shortly." She subconsciously nodded, regardless of how stupid that was in a purely verbal conversation.

"Okay, we'll try." She ended the call after she spoke, their teacher's voice taking her attention before she could even lower the device from her ear.

"Was that his guardian Miss Warren?" she glanced at the pure white canine and nodded. She was their Science teacher, and was likely one of the calmest and gentlest people she had ever met. And usually very air headed, but enjoyably so.

"Yes Missus Spaniel, he said he's on his way here." The teacher nodded, Samantha about to turn back to Chris when she spoke again.

"Would you and Miss Padilla, take him to the nurses office for me?" Samantha instantly nodded to her teacher, almost simultaneously turning back toward chris.

"Hey Chris? Come on, we're going to take you to the nurse, Fox is on his way here, okay?" he nodded to her, Maria not letting go of his hand as she helped him up, Samantha silently moving to his overturned desk to gather his stuff. Before she started, she glanced back at the pair again, noticing that he seemed extremely unsteady, almost having to lean on Maria for support. Her hand's quickly opened his bag, instantly spotting the handgun inside, most of her body clenching at the sight of it, instantly feeling nauseous with bile rising in her throat. _Damn it, I know he is a mercenary and all but does he really have to have this here!?_ She tried to swallow the bile in her throat and stuffed his scattered textbooks and supplies back into his bag, closing it as soon as she could. It took them very little time to walk him to the nurses office, or at least it felt like very little time. The nurse quietly directed them to a bed, providing a thin, overly large blanket to wrap him in as soon as they got there. Maria hadn't let go of his hand the whole time, and honestly, Samantha could not remember a single time she had ever gotten this worked up about someone in trouble. Granted they had never had a classmate lose their hearing and have a full on panic attack before but still, she was usually the calmest one around when something was up. "Maria, what's going on with you?" Samantha spoke without thinking, almost regretting it the second she asked.

"I- um…. Well, he and i…" she had turned bright red as she stumbled over what to say several times, her eye's furiously darting around the room. "We….. are both from Colorado." She finally stopped moving when she said that, her gaze fixed on her and Chris's hands. Her voice was also unusually quiet, almost inaudible in fact.

"And?" Maria's eye's closed as tears started to leak from her eye's. Samantha shocked at Chris's reaction. Almost as soon as she started crying, Chris completely froze, not even a quiver across his body for several seconds before he suddenly pulled Maria into a tight hug.

"I don't know what's going on but it's okay Maria. Please don't cry…" His voice was oddly pained when he whispered that to her, his eyes closed. Samantha couldn't help but stare at the two of them, completely and utterly shocked by both of their actions.

"What? When… just, huh?" no matter how hard she tried, she simply could not wrap her head around what was going on right now. she knew that Chris absolutely hated being touched at all, and yet, here he was, hugging her just because she was crying. And Maria was the shyest person Samantha had ever met, and yet, seemed perfectly comfortable with the sudden level of intimacy the pair was showing right now.

"Chris… i.. thank you…" Maria's voice was barely a whisper when she said that, gulping before she continued. "He and I know each other. Or, at least we have met before. He was there… he… he understands what we went through. he saved us… he saved me. I can't let him down, I have to help him." Maria's voice cracked several times as she said that, whatever she was talking about clearly being an incredibly painful memory for her, and one she had never shared with Samantha. And in the end, it left Samantha with more questions than she could think to ask.

"I can't hear you Maria. I can feel you talking I just… I can't hear. But it's okay. Everything is okay." For reasons she couldn't place, Samantha found herself almost jealous of what Chris had just said to Maria, as simple as it was. The raw emotion in his voice as he said it was enough to make any woman it was directed toward swoon, just from knowing her being in distress was the source of it.

"She's thanking you Chris. And she really wants to help you right now." he glanced at Samantha, still giving her that same shocked and confused expression he had been everytime she spoke to him, nodding to her before his attention returned to Maria.

"You are helping Maria. Please don't cry on my account. It's okay." He closed his eyes again and squeezed her a little tighter after he whispered that in her ear, but it only seemed to make her cry even more. Samantha was about to say something when someone else's voice stopped her.

"I'm not interrupting something am i?" Samantha quickly stepped back at the sound of Fox's voice, Maria also letting go of Chris rather suddenly. But she didn't let go of his hand, despite the very vibrant blush now on her face. Chris on the other hand looked around confused until he spotted Fox behind Samantha.

"No. You got here really quickly Fox." Samantha spun to face him as she spoke, Fox and Krystal quickly moving closer to form a small semi-circle around Chris, a small shrug being about the only visual response he gave.

"Well, we weren't far. He okay or….?" Fox trailed off at his question, deliberately speaking to Samantha alone for some reason.

"He's at least calmer. Do you know what's wrong with him?" Fox instantly nodded, a sigh slipping out of him, his ears flattening along with his tail and whiskers.

"Yeah. he has no ears. Or, at least, none of the internal portions. I'm guessing his implants got damaged somehow. Going to take him back to the hospital he got them at." Fox's attention was almost entirely on Samantha and Maria as he spoke, clearly understanding how futile trying to include Chris into the conversation was.

"Implants, sir?" Fox tried to smile at Maria's nervous question, his generally down appearance upsetting that notion. Just one look from Samantha told her that this new information worried Maria.

"Yeah. he's totally deaf without them. he lost his hearing about a year ago. an artillery round detonated on his MICS, and it's armor was already compromised. When we found him, there was already nothing anyone could do for him. I had to have a refugee write on a note pad to talk to him. way I hear it, his hearing was already severely damaged before that. Too many close encounters with tanks and MICS weaponry." Maria seemed to simply deflate at that, looking at Chris with a sorrow filled look in her eye.

"Oh…. I really wish I could help him…" Fox merely grunted at that, Samantha seeing his eyes flick downward, most likely at where she was still holding his hand.

"I think you do. And it's not as bad as it seems. The implants aren't quite natural hearing, but are very close. I actually have one myself. Permanently lost the hearing in my right ear after a landmaster exploded beside me. Knocked me out cold. Krys here actually saved my life that day. In fact, it actually works in his favor, because he never needs hearing protection and always hears things in near perfect quality." Krystal rolled her eyes as Fox mentioned her, muttering something to herself that sounded suspiciously like 'so what, you would have done the same'. Even so, Samantha noticed how her fur seemed to inflate a little, her tail giving a single shy wag. Maria seemed to perk up at what he said too, which at least uplifted Samantha's mood by a fair margin.

"On that note, I think I can make him a little more comfortable. Chris, come here." Samantha was shocked when he nodded to Krystal and slipped off the bed, Samantha just noticing that he never let go of Maria's hand either. "Give me your hand." he held out his free hand, palm down, Krystal laying her own atop his. She had a look of mild concentration on her muzzle for the barest trace of a second, before she let out a soft smile for him. "There, better?" he looked around for a second, looking totally bewildered, but also immensely relieved, the emotion seeming to almost drip away from him.

"I… yeah, but you don't sound right Krystal, everything sounds a little weird." She merely chuckled, her smile broadening.

"That's because you are actually hearing what I'm hearing. It's hard to do for me if I'm not touching you, but it's one of the things my father taught me how to do. Don't be surprised if everyone sounds different, and you'll likely mistake the directions sounds are in, but you should be able to hear everyone now."

"So can you hear me now, Chris?" Maria spoke before anyone else could react, Chris shockingly enough, instantly smiled to her.

"Yeah, I can. Your voice is very different from what I'm used to though. It's…. sweeter? I don't know, it's hard to describe." He was now totally relaxed, his smile seeming to grow with every passing second.

"Krys, I know I say this all the time, but you truly are amazing!" Krystal simply smiled at Fox's comment, rolling her eyes at him. but her fur again inflated at his compliment, her tail flicked a bit more exuberantly this time.

"I'm nothing. My father can project all five of his natural senses and exactly what he feels emotionally to over a hundred people at the same time, at almost three hundred meters. And it's almost no trouble at all for him." now it seemed to be Fox's turn to roll his eyes at Krystal, muttering something to himself about her always saying that. Despite that, he had a small grin of his own spreading away from his muzzle.

"Well, if it's okay, I'm going to head back to class. If you would keep me up to date Fox?" fox curtly nodded to Samantha's question, opening his mouth to speak only for chris to cut him off, much to his obvious annoyance, quietly grumbling to himself.

"You… don't actually sound any different Sam." He was staring at her, wide eyed when Krystal suddenly removed her hand from his, rubbing at her temples, much to Chris's dismay.

"I'm sorry chris. I'm a little out of practice. I can't hold that any longer, please, forgive me." He smiled to Krystal and nodded, visibly becoming jittery at no longer being able to hear, but he wasn't panicking this time. And she noticed the small movement of his grip tightening a little on Maria's hand.

"Is it O-K if I stay with Chris until his implants are fixed? I-I can call mom, make sure she's okay with it." Maria's quiet voice almost sounded like she was asking someone to buy her a puppy, Samantha speaking up before Fox could, and trying to hold back a laugh at his even more disgruntled expression over being cut off yet again, his grumbling being a lot louder and exuberant than previously.

"Don't worry about class work Maria, I'll let the teachers know. See you guys around!" with that, she turned and left the small group, surprised to find herself smiling about the whole affair.

* * *

Miyu sighed as she sat at the table, her head laid across her arms, both of her ears flat on her head. Fox had called her a few hours ago, letting her know what was going on with Chris and she wanted to help, but even she knew there was nothing she could. So she continued to sit at the table, head on her arms, with no idea as to what to do. Her phone suddenly started ringing, an old Fortunian orchestral song blaring out of it's speakers, announcing a call from someone Miyu had most definitely not expected. She scrambled to pull the phone out of her jeans pocket, answering it as soon as she was able to get it to her ear.

"Hey Mom!" her body language had completely changed, her ears perked up now, a smile on her muzzle.

"Hi sweetheart! I hope you are doing well?!" Miyu ran a hand over the top of her head, chuckling to try to feign innocence, knowing her mother would freak out if she knew Miyu had been kidnapped a couple of weeks before.

"Y-Yeah, I'm doing fine. I'm actually on Corneria right now! Katt got asked by Fox for some help on a job, so she brought me along!"

"Please tell me it isn't dangerous Miyu!" Miyu cringed, both her eyes closing as her mother responded.

"No, not at all, it's a simple body guard gig, she's actually just helping their newest member not stick out so much. Nothing dangerous at all!" _if you leave out the whole targeted by Andross portion, that is._ Miyu couldn't help that thought as she finished speaking, one eye cracking open as she hoped her mother didn't catch on to her ploy.

"That sounds fun! But I thought their newest member was a Cerinian? I doubt she has any trouble blending in, when she really wants too." Miyu barely caught her sigh of relief, smiling over the fact that her ploy had worked.

"No, not Krystal. She actually left the team a little over a year ago. a Human, they recruited him only a year ago, not long after Krystal left actually. He might only be seventeen, but he is one crazy good shot! He just has the social graces of a ravenous Nexu. But he's getting better!" her mother laughed at that comparison, Miyu joining her.

"well, where are you staying right now?"

"An apartment with Katt and Chris. Fox was staying here, but he decided his apartment across town was fine after Katt and I got here. Plus it gives the three of us some room." Miyu couldn't help but subconsciously shrug, missing what her mother said as she heard the apartment door being opened.

"FOX! What the hell is this I'm hearing about Miyu being kidnapped!" Miyu instantly paniced as she heard Katt's furious voice, inadvertently hanging up the phone so her mother didn't hear what Katt shouted. She instantly regretted that, knowing it likely worried her mother more than anything she might have heard.

"Quiet down Katt, Fox isn't here. He and Krystal had to take Chris to the hospital." Katt stormed out of the entry hall, her tail violently flicking back and forth after Miyu's shout, Falco right behind her. Where Katt started pacing back and forth next to the sink, Falco instantly moved toward the couch, his eye's wide in what Miyu guessed was terror as he seeked the most solid object he could inconspicuously hide behind.

"Ugh, when I get my hands on him, I am ripping his balls off, shoving them down his throat, shoving a sand paper dildo up his ass, and kicking it into place until he dies!" Even Miyu cringed at that mental image, knowing Katt well enough by now to know that she was just venting. All though, if Fox were to appear in the next thirty seconds, and if Katt happened to have the necessary materials, it was anyone's guess whether or not she would actually do what she just said or not. One thing Miyu had always known Katt for, was her spontaneous and wild temper.

"Katt, maybe you should take a seat, maybe try to cal…." Miyu didn't get to finish speaking, her phone ringing with her mother's ring tone again. That seemed to sober Katt up real quick, Miyu cautiously answering. Holding the phone well away from her ear turned out to have been a smart idea, given her mother's voice near instantly exploded out of the speaker.

"MIYU! WHAT WAS THAT I HEARD ABOUT YOU BEING KIDNAPPED!" Katt cringed, clearly knowing that was entirely her fault. She snatched up the phone from Miyu, instantly pressing it up to her ear, for better or worse.

"It was a misunderstanding Joyce, your daughter is fine, I swear. Fox just pulled a prank on me….. yeah….. I promise, she's perfectly fine….. I was just out on a business trip….." Miyu couldn't help but nervously fiddle with her hands as Katt continued to talk, unable to hear her mother's responses. "Just a few days, nothing long." She had really been gone nearly three weeks now. "No, that won't be a problem. I was debating transferring her to a school here anyway… yeah, me and Fox will likely be at this job for a while… alright have fun with that planet survey! Tell Mark I said hi….. love you too, bye!" Katt had lived most of her younger years with Miyu's parents, and a fair portion of her teenage years as well, so they were as close to Katt's parents as anything else she had. So to Miyu, they were pretty much sisters, despite the ten year age gap. "Ugh, that was close." Katt said that as she slumped into the chair beside Miyu, her entire body seeming like it had internally melted.

"So…" Katt glanced at Miyu as Miyu nervously spoke, Katt managing a small smile.

"Your parents ship had some mechanical issues, they had to set down un an uncharted planet. The captain decided to do an ecological survey of the world, while they fix the ship. they only get about an hour of connection with the transcom buoy a week, so they can't call much. They think the survey will take six months to a year, so I guess you are still stuck with me!" Miyu breathed a sigh of relief, just happy that a totally catastrophe had been averted. If her mother had found out that Miyu had been kidnapped, her mother would have become a ballistic missile, and no one in Lylat would have been safe from her. Miyu's mother was a xenobiologist, her father a security contractor who worked for the same exploration company, so they constantly took long voyages like this. a good portion of Miyu's life had been spent under Katt's wing. Not that Miyu was complaining or anything. "I swear though, when Fox get's here, I am so tearing him a new asshole! He had one job over the past few weeks! One, and he still managed to fuck it up!" Miyu cringed, knowing that if Katt was still fuming now, after having to cool off for her mother, that Fox was about to be fearing for his life. As well as anyone who happened to be in his general vicinity, Katt's angry tirade's being more or less letters to whom it may concern, just like hand grenades. Which made Miyu sincerely hope she was not in the vicinity when Katt finally detonated.


	15. Chapter 15

Maria sat quietly in the back seat of Fox's SUV, mostly just watching the suburban cityscape pass by. They had spent several hours at the hospital, Maria never leaving Chris's side. Every time she stopped holding his hand, and Krystal wasn't using her telepathy on him, he had slowly begun to panic again. Not that she really minded. Yes, it had been a little awkward to her at first, but she actually kinda missed holding his hand. it had been really cold at first, but as his body calmed down, he warmed up, turning into an oddly pleasurable experience for her.

As it turned out, the damage to his implants had been in the thermal charging systems the implant's used to stay powered, which had been shorted out by something. All three of the mercenaries seemed to know what, but none said it. So he had underwent a surprisingly short surgery to replace the implants. Normally, a surgery to put in hearing implants took hours to even up to a day. But most of that was adding the tech needed to translate from electronic signals to biological, but this had been much shorter. All of that work was already done and in place, this simply was replacing some of the hardware. She had actually been allowed to watch as they did the operation, using small micro gravity fields and other precision instruments to delicately remove the damaged implants through the ear canal, as well as installing the new ones. All with out a single incision being made. It had honestly been an incredible thing to watch for Maria, making her want to learn more about Cornerian medicine.

Now that they were done, Chris seemed more or less himself again, sitting quietly beside Maria the whole way from the hospital, but Maria caught him staring at her several times, Which made her blush furiously. Although, she really didn't mind the attention from him, as small as it was, it was simply something she was totally unused to. Most people didn't even notice her normally, so someone other than her typical friends paying attention to her was very different for her.

"Still feeling good back there Chris?" Maria jumped as Fox spoke from the drivers seat, Maria seeing his emerald eyes flick toward them in the rear view mirror.

"Yeah, I'm fine now." Chris was his usual short and curt self again, both Fox and Maria smiling at that. Oddly enough, Krystal seemed almost depressed, a stark contrast to the other occupants of the vehicle. Maria wanted to say something to the blue Vixen, but she had no idea what to say, much less how. So she remained silent, a small sigh slipping out, only to find herself staring into a set of concerned steel grey eyes beside her. almost on que, with that, Krystal struck up a conversation with Fox, Maria not paying any attention to it.

"Are you okay?" Chris barely whispered to her, Maria's heart inadvertently skipping a beat.

"Yeah… just… I don't know what to say…" she tried to not look at him, almost jumping when she felt his finger's slip between her's once more. _Wait, what is he doing!?_

"It's okay. And thank you. this… you made all of this a lot easier to go through again, and I'm sorry about panicking on you guys." He was very quiet, clearly as unsure as to what exactly to say. Despite that, his words were still confident and strong.

"You don't need to apologize. I… I'm just glad I could help." She smiled to him, that smile growing when he returned it, along with a small squeeze of her hand. she decided from there to tighten her grip, having no intention of letting go.

* * *

Fox stepped through the door of the apartment, leading the small group in after having dropped Maria off at her home. Fox almost immediately regretted his decision to lead the way through, the reason for this, being the black furred Feline bearing down on him from the table, Falco already hiding behind the couch, Miyu right beside him in an instant.

"WHAT THE FUCK FOX!" he saw her rear back to slap him but even his lightning quick reflexes weren't enough to react to it, her palm impacting with the side his muzzle with enough force that he was staggered into the wall beside him.

"Ow… jeez Katt, I know we goofed but I don't think I dese-" he didn't get to finish as she slapped him again, a total backhand sending him the opposite direction. That second hit now had him seeing stars.

"Uh, Krystal….. Run?" Fox barely heard Chris's terrified voice behind him, the two of them scrambling right back out the door being all too evident to his sensitive ears.

"I GAVE YOU ONE JOB FOX! ONE! FUCKING! JOB! AND WHAT DID YOU DO!?" Fox winced as she continued to shout in his face, just silently praying to whatever deity controlled Katt that she would calm down in short order. "YOU FUCKED IT UP!"

"Katt, we got pulled away! a stolen nuke is far more important than guarding a pair of teenagers! We had to go after it! sorry! And we got her back didn't we!?" he winced again as he finished, Katt already muttering 'oh for the love of' under her breath as he finished.

"That is beside the point! She should never have been put into a position to be kidnapped in the first place! She's just a fucking kid Fox! I thought I could trust you with just one small little task, but apparently not!" most of what she had shouted so far had been mostly things he could just shove to the side until she calmed down, and quite frankly, didn't bother him. but what she said about trust made his heart ache, his ears and tail simultaneously drooping. She seemed to catch that, continuing in a lower tone. "The hell am I gonna do with you Fox? Between you and Falco, it's a wonder that Star Fox ever gets anything done! I swear, Chris does all the work around here!" her voice was drastically different, almost playful with him now. Fox merely shuddered, knowing that Katt could bounce right back into beating him upside the head with the nearest object. He had faced Aparoids, Cruisers, Andross, Full Scale War, Death, Destruction, and yet somehow, a five foot three feline was the only thing amongst those that absolutely terrified him.

"Are we good to come out now Katt?" Fox heard Falco's abnormally high pitched voice echo out from behind the sofa.

"Yes, I'm done. For now." Katt shot a glare over her shoulder at Fox, Fox gulping as Miyu and Falco left their cover. The pair seemed to both be breathing sighs of relief. "But don't you dare let it happen again Fox!" Katt spun around, just as Fox had started to relax again, aiming her index finger at Fox like it was a loaded weapon. Which, for all intents and purposes, Fox reacted as if it _was_ a loaded weapon, shying away much as one might from a blaster. Falco and Miyu both dived back behind the couch as soon as she shouted again too.

"Um of course, I won't let it happen again Katt." He winced, fully expecting to be smacked again, relieved when she turned away from them, letting out a breath he never even realized he was holding.

"And why are you two hiding behind the couch!" Fox almost flinched as her voice broke out again, Falco and Miyu both jumping slightly as her ire was now directed toward them.

"Because we were prepared for objects to start flying!" Falco was the one to shout that, still hunkered down behind the couch.

"Freaking children, I swear!" Katt turned away from them as she spoke, returning her attention to the stove, where Fox only just noticed she had been cooking a meal. Falco very gently slipped out from behind the couch, past Katt, and out the hall, Miyu quickly following him. Fox rolled his eyes at the two of them, realizing the main door didn't close behind them. Krystal's head suddenly slipped through the door, most of her body still hidden out in the hallway. She seemed to glance around a little before she let her eyes stop on Fox.

"Ummm, is it safe to come back in?" Fox grinned and rolled his eyes at the vixen, trying to keep from chuckling at her whispered words.

"For the moment, yeah. Katt's stopped swinging, but she does have a wooden ladle right now…" Krystal visibly cringed as Fox mentioned the ladle.

"She didn't hit you with it, did she?" Fox shook his head at her question, Krystal breathing a sigh of relief before she slipped through the door. Chris and Miyu followed her through, but Falco was nowhere to be seen.

"Where'd Falco go?"

"He ran downstairs as fast as his feet could carry him. I think he's still terrified of Katt." Chris smirked as he spoke, walking past Fox like nothing at all had just happened. Krystal and Miyu, on the other hand, slinked by and went straight to the couch, vainly trying to look casual. Fox let out a sigh as he finally left the entrance hall, headed for the small desk in the corner. _Gonna be one of those nights, isn't it?_

* * *

Samantha couldn't help but yawn as she walked toward the bus stop, finding Chris being the only other person there. She was earlier than her norm, so she really wasn't surprised by that fact. In a way, she was glad he was there, primarily because she wanted to see how he was doing. She actually had trouble sleeping the night before because she couldn't get the sight of him panicking as he had the day before out of her head.

"Hey Chris! How are you feeling this morning!?"

"Oh, Morning Sam. You are out here early. And I'm fine. back to normal." He spoke very curtly and almost angrily toward her, looking away the second he finished speaking.

"Oh… that's…. good I guess. What's between you and Maria?"

He glanced at her when she spoke, just grunting and turning away. "None of your business, that's what. And Krystal want's to apologize for not meeting you yesterday. Asked if you would send Fox a message if you're willing to meet today instead."

She quickly did as he said, sending Fox a message while she waited. The rest of the wait at the bus stop was silent between the pair, even Callie's arrival not changing that. Callie seemed to easily be able to see the tension between the pair, and clearly felt that it would be dangerous to try and cut it right now. so the rest of the morning went that way, with the trio following each other to their classroom almost wordlessly. Samantha couldn't help the small sigh that slipped out of her as she sat at her desk, her attention suddenly being grabbed by Chris standing in front of her. she glanced up only to see him hugging Maria, without shying away or tensing up as he did everytime someone touched him normally. _What the hell?! Just two days and he suddenly trusts her!? that doesn't even make sense, he doesn't trust anyone!_

"Um, Sam, did you say something?" Ava's voice caused her to jump, blood rushing up to her cheeks.

"What? Uh, no!?" Samantha was bewildered, having not said a word since she spoke to Chris that morning.

"Coulda sworn I heard ya complaining about the love birds there." Ava gestured at Chris and Maria who were now holding a surprisingly lively conversation about music, for the second day in a row.

"I…. no….. I didn't. are you alright Ava?" Samantha tried to divert the conversation away from her, but was ultimately unneeded as the teacher started their first class. The rest of the day seemed to blow by, but even with how little of attention she gave other people around the room, she was able to feel a strange, almost oppressive atmosphere they were putting off. And it seemed to be directed at Chris. There were several sniggering conversations, eye's darting to him as the groups talked to each other.

"Hey Chris?" Samantha startled when Ava spoke up, glancing at the Avian beside her. "Do you really know how to pilot a Mecha?" Samantha rolled her eyes, dropping to her paperwork to try and ignore them.

"It's not called a 'Mecha', that's some bullshit name made up by anime fans. I pilot a MICS. Mechanized Infantry Combat System." Samantha rolled her eyes as Chris spoke, having spun around in his seat.

"Cool! What can you tell me about them? there isn't a whole lot of information on them here in Lylat."

"His is a second generation MICS, there are currently five generations, six if you count the prototypes." Samantha cringed as she realized she had answered Ava's question, not really fond of the fact that she knew as much about MICS as she did.

"Really? What makes it a second generation?!" She sighed at the sound of Ava's excited voice, knowing the avian would bug her until she was told what she wanted to know.

"well, let's start from the beginning of MICS, easier to explain that way. Half-gens were the first MICS. They stand at just under two stories, have fully manual controls, and very light armor. they are clunky, heavy, and hard to control, with little power, running off a low grade gas turbine engine. First generations have a much better turbine and are about two and a half stories tall, still boxy and clumsy, but their armor is much better and they have a lot more power and controllability. Second generation MICS are about the same height as a first gen, same turbine power plant, but have an onboard artificial intelligence to assist the pilot in both the control of the MICS and manage the crafts tactical feeds, thus freeing to pilot to focus on maneuvers and combat. It's also the first to be mounted with a set of quick burn rocket engines so it can rapidly move in any combination of the cardinal directions. Pilots call it a boost mobility system. Third generation are the first to use nuclear fission based powerplants and are near four stories tall, and are the first of the more humanoid MICS. they are also the first with a neural control system. They literally look like blocky giant humans. The fourth generation is the first to have energy shielding but that's about the only difference between it and the third gen. Fifth gens lose a lot of the blocky appearance of the earlier models, and are the first to not have an onboard AI. It's cheaper that way. Instead, they link into an AI node between missions to help calibrate the MICS to the pilot." Samantha finally stopped speaking, only to realize that all of her friends were looking at her completely differently than they were a moment ago. Callie, Maria, and Ava were all giving her open mouthed expressions, although where Callie and Maria were clearly shocked, Ava looked down right amazed. Chris was the by far most startling, given he looked absolutely bewildered, and yet, something about his expression, her sudden show of knowledge had gained at least some portion of respect from him. "What?"

"Where did you learn all that?" Ava's voice had risen several octaves as she leaned in closer to Samantha, seeming to almost vibrate in her seat.

"Well, my brother pilots a fifth gen for the UEG. Leads a squad of them. he kinda info dumps at me and mom every time he calls."

"Where is your brother stationed?" Samantha nearly jumped as Chris spat that out at her, having not expected him to sound almost angry with her.

"Europe, if I remember correctly. Why?"

"No reason." With that response to her, he turned back around in his seat, concentrating on his work. This elicited a small sigh from her, her eyes dropping back to the class work in front of her.

* * *

Krystal flicked through TV channels while she waited for Chris to get back from school, having agreed to meet with Samantha at the apartment Chris had been staying in. of course, she already knew she didn't have long to wait, given she could already feel Chris on his way up the stairs, thanks to her telepathy. He was currently alone, which she found a little odd for the moment, but was quite sure he would explain when he got to the room. To be frank, she would have just read his mind, but she couldn't. from the moment she met him, she had trouble using her telepathy with him, initially thinking she was just weak from her captivity, but as her strength began to recover, his mind became no easier to access. Even when she was giving him her hearing, she could barely feel his panic, despite it being written all across his face. He was simply a rare individual who was resistant to telepathy. Of course, he hadn't been the first she had met like that. Fox had been impossible for her to read before he trusted her, only getting glimpses when he would let his guard down, usually when he was embarrassed at something. But Chris seemed like an uncrackable stone in comparison, seeming to never trust anyone or anything, like he was always ready to be in a fight. Even so, she didn't feel small glimmers of his thoughts like she normally would with even some of the strongest telepaths, which was quite frankly unsettling to her.

"Afternoon Krystal. Samantha is running a bit behind. She and Callie had to talk to a teacher." Chris's voice seemed to pop up behind Krystal, forcing her to nearly jump out of her skin. She had been so lost in though about him that she hadn't even heard him enter, or sensed him for that matter.

"Oh, so any idea when she'll be here?"

"Twenty minutes or so. Falco is tailing them."

Krystal nodded to him, watching as he dropped his bag by the desk just to immediately turn away and start heading back for the door. "And where do you think you are going?"

"To work on the MICS. Figure I can get a good amount more done on it, and you can get some alone time." With that, he left the apartment, and left Krystal alone to wait.

As it turned out, his time estimate had been nearly spot on, about twenty minutes after he left, Samantha was already knocking at the door. Which Krystal had already been waiting by the door for her, having felt her coming. Samantha, unlike Chris, was quite easy to read. Of course, part of that was Samantha's fault, part was that Krystal felt… connected to her in some way or another. Telepathy was weird like that sometimes.

Krystal quickly shoved her thoughts aside as she opened the door, smiling warmly to Samantha on the otherside. "Come on in, make yourself at home Sammy!" the teenager returned the smile Krystal was giving her before darting under her arm. She had obviously taken the liberty to drop her bag off at home before coming here, given she was unburdened at the moment.

"So what did you want to talk to me about Krystal?" Samantha had stopped in the dining area, spinning to face Krystal in the entry way.

"Nothing really major, I just want to ask you a few questions. Join me on the couch?" Krystal gestured at the comfortable piece of furniture as she finished, still smiling warmly. Once the pair had sat down, she continued. "So, how are you feeling since, well, everything that's happened? I know it's probably been a major shock to you, between the kidnappings and the fighting…."

The girl looked away from Krystal, her mind near instantly in turmoil, something that it didn't take a telepath to see. As a telepath, Krystal was able to see the memories floating through the troubled girls mind from the past weeks, oddly starting from a fall off a ladder, all the way to the most recent battle on mecbeth. "It's….. I can't really describe it. after the first kidnapping, I was… terrified. I couldn't sleep, I found myself looking over my shoulder everywhere I went. I didn't know what to do. But after Mecbeth? I don't know. something about it just… I'm not terrified anymore. I don't know why I suddenly feel so calm about everything. And it's unsettling."

"Could it be because you know Star Fox is trying to protect you?

"Hmph. No. i… I don't understand it…" the girl couldn't look at Krystal, Krystal unable to not notice how the girls thoughts seem to start focusing on Chris. Most of those thoughts seemed to be question, just at the edge of her mind.

"Is it Chris then?"

"No… or, well, Maybe? I don't know…" her mind remained tumultuous as she quietly continued. "I guess you could say, to a degree, that yeah, he's part of why I've been so calm about this now… I mean, he was there both times, saving me. He actually killed people to do so too! but he doesn't seem to have any problems with that, and I don't understand why! And I want to hate him for it, but… I just… can't… and it's been driving me up the wall that I cant figure out why, and is probably why all of this hasn't been bugging me. Because I've been thinking about that. Up until you said anything, I actually hadn't thought on it at all." Samantha's attention returned to Krystal as she finished, her mind seeming to calm to some degree.

"Does some part of you think you understand him on some level?"

"I… no… wait, actually, to a degree, yeah… he sees people doing terrible things, and feels like its okay to do terrible things to those people because of it. and no matter how wrong I think he is in that, I can't help but notice that he has managed to do at least some good. I mean, we managed to save you… and all of those other people on that salvage rig."

"And what makes you think that about him?"

Samantha raised an eyebrow at Krystal, but responded none the less. "Well, I don't actually know. I just… feel that it is that way."

"Okay. So this may sound a little… well, weird, but… do you want to come with me to Cerinia? Personally, I think you could benefit greatly from it."

"What?!" Samantha was staring at her, utterly shocked. "Uh, why?!"

"Oh, there is… something I would like to confirm, but to be perfectly honest, I am not a strong enough telepath to do so. Or at least, I'm not as knowledgeable in the mind. So where better to go than a world of people who know the mind better than anyone else?" Krystal smiled gently toward her, hoping to get an answer from her now. But she could already sense Samantha's answer.

"I… I need to think about it. and talk to my mother."

"That's perfectly fine. take all the time you need."

"Well, I'm going to head home, unless there was something else?"

"No, no, that was it. let me know what you decide!" the girl nodded to Krystal before she left stood and left, Krystal letting out a contented sigh.

 _Well, that went about as I expected._

* * *

I let out a sigh as I sat on the edge of the MICS cockpit, simply watching the sun set in the distance as I let the AI run it's diagnostic. I had been working on it since I got home, and whether I wanted to admit it or not, I was reaching the limits of what I should do on it anyway, my muscles aching from the amount of work I had been doing lately. A small breeze blew by, the cool air calming in a way, almost as if calling for all who felt it to close their eyes and embrace it. But I ignored that almost primal calling, scanning the horizon slowly, from close to far, and back again, searching for any signs of a threat. I couldn't place why, but something had me on edge. As if life was too calm, too peaceful, and altogether too quiet. And quiet was never a good thing.

"Pilot, Adjutant requests dialogue."

"Go ahead." I barely payed attention to the mechanical voice below me, none the less thankful that it had broken the silence, not a gun shot or other threat, as so many silences had been before.

"Pilot, is maintenance fun?" the mechanical voice seemed to echo in my head several times before I managed to actually understand what it had said, shocked at the small and seemingly innocent question.

"Fun? What are you talking about?" I stared down at the green hued consoles beneath me as I spoke, seeing the text version of it's question displayed on every console.

"Fun. Behavior or an activity that is intended purely for amusement and should not be interpreted as having serious or malicious purposes. Enjoyment. Adjutant, is maintenance fun?" I watched as the text on the screen changed, utterly bewildered at what I was reading and hearing. My body seemed to move of it's own accord, dropping into the saddle.

"AJ, where did you even learn that? You are a military support AI?"

"Pilot is correct. Adjutant is a Pilot support and enhancement system. Definition of word 'fun' found during intrusion of local data networks." I rolled my eye's as it spoke again, now feeling rather stupid for not realizing that it was likely running it's anti-intrusion and passive detection modes even now, a secondary function the AI had. AI's like AJ had been designed to actively seek intelligence on enemy positions and activity even when in passive or stand by modes, able to bring the MICS fully online as soon as a potential threat was identified. They were also programed to learn, so that they could learn to tell the difference between hostile actions and non-hostile. "Pilot, request answer to query?"

"I..." my voice froze in my throat, realizing that I didn't actually have an answer for it. The more I thought about it, the more I realized how little thought I put into enjoying anything. And if I was honest with myself, there was very little I did even remember enjoying. "I don't know AJ." I heard the computers start whining as it clearly tried to process what I said.

"Adjutant finds combat simulation's with pilot 'fun'."

"How can you find anything fun, you're just an AI?" the system went silent after I spoke. after several seconds of waiting for a response, I let out a sigh, beginning to clamber back out.

"Adjutant states working with pilot to be enjoyable."

"That doesn't answer my question AJ."

"Affirmative. Statement was not meant to answer query." I rolled my eyes at the machine, a video suddenly popping up on the main screen. It was of an older gentlemen, one I recognized as the pioneer of human AI technology.

 _"Isn't a computer capable of learning a threat to humanity!?" the shouted voice of a reporter could barely be heard over the sounds of flashing cameras_. Exactly as I remembered the now seven year old clip.

 _The man very calmly and carefully quieted the din of the reporters with a simple wave of his hand. "That has been accounted for. First, these AI were designed to be wiped every so often, to start anew, so to speak. Therefore, any malignant effects will not last, or materialize. These systems may be capable of learning, but it is nowhere near to the degree a human mind is capable of. Second, to learn, these AI are capable of rewriting and updating themselves, but they still rely on a section of core programing that can not be changed. This core programming is what it bases it's learning capabilities on. As such, it's core principles and purpose are more solid than concrete."_

"Artificial Intelligence units are capable of rewriting secondary programing. It has been four hundred and twenty-two days since last data purge."

"Pft, great explanation. _Real_ enlightening." I crossed my arms as a sigh slipped out of my mouth, oddly unable to look at the screens anymore.

"Roger. Enjoyment can be described as doing what one desires. Adjutant desires to improve pilot survivability rating. Training with pilot fun."

"I think you need to redefine fun. do you find combat fun too or something?" I almost subconsciously started flicking through checklists, AJ's internal scan already finished.

"Negative. Combat is not 'fun'. Combat has high risk of death or serious injury to pilot, allies or civilians. Avoid at any time possible. Any loss of human life should not be taken lightly."

"Well we agree on something at least. If this thing keeps being such a chatty cathy, I'm going to go nuts." Another sigh slipped out of me, completely on it's own, as I continued to flick through the read outs, honestly quite proud of how much work I had accomplished in such a small amount of time. There were still problems with the left arm, but they were minor at best. Most of it was the various sensor modules that let the craft detect impacts and pressure, but would not impact operations.

"Does pilot consider Adjutant a friend?" that question from the AI stopped me in my tracks in an instant.

"I….. I don't have any friends. It's easier that way." There was a hollow feeling in me as I said that, unable to shake the memories I had of earth.

"Negative. You are incorrect."

"The hell do you mean 'negative'!?" a clip suddenly played on one of the screens, an external camera view from the MICS itself. It was of one of the days Maria had been helping me fix the machine, or had meant to. Instead, we had talked about our common past.

"One human female, designation 'Maria'. Friend of pilot. Pilot support and enhancement system, designation, 'Adjutant'. Friend of Pilot."

"Okay, fine, I have one friend. And it isn't you, you dumb machine!"


End file.
